1. Benefits and Features of Medical Practice Call
Outsourcing
Medical practices often need a way to communicate with their patients 24 hours a day. One of
the most cost effective ways to obtain this capability is to outsource call answering to a third
party.
These third party companies, known as medical answering services or call centers, help
medical practices remain available to patients without drastically increasing costs, personnel, or
technology requirements.
This document will examine the benefits and features of answering services for medical
practices.
24 Hour Availability
Typical medical practices operate during business hours. In order to provide after-hours medical
care, practices have several options. One is to maintain 24 hour staffing, which is costly.
Another is to use on-call personnel, who take calls made to an emergency pager or telephone
number. This option works, but forces on-call staff to take every call made to the line and lacks
oversight.
For example, a caller with a non-emergency concern may call the after-hours line just to ask
a basic question, interrupting the on-call personnel and potentially distracting him or her from
more pressing needs. The lack of oversight refers to the trouble practices have in tracking calls
and monitoring the performance of their on-call personnel.
A medical call answering service can alleviate these concerns by providing around the clock
availability, call filtering capabilities, call recording, and on-call contact procedures that ensure
every call is handled per the practice’s instructions.
Friendly, Patient Operators
Being on-call is stressful, and this stress is often noticeable to callers and patients who interact
with on-call staff. Medical answering services are staffed by professional, courteous operators
who are trained to offer a quality customer service experience.

2. By outsourcing to a service, medical practices can keep their patients happy and reduce the
number of poor experiences with stressed out on-call personnel.
Advanced Technology
A lot goes into running a call center or medical answering service, and the requirements are
often outside the capabilities of a medical practice. Calls need routed to personnel over a variety
of mediums; HIPAA regulations must be followed; conversations need recorded; processes and
steps need automated.
Outsourcing to a third party allows a medical practice to avoid adding additional infrastructure or
spending money on technical resources. The answering service will have all the technology in
place and ready for use.
Conclusion
By outsourcing to a medical answering service, healthcare offices can maintain 24 hour
availability, provide friendly patient care, and take advantage of new technology at a fraction of
internal costs.