Why Virtual Receptionist Services are Key to Saving on Labor Costs

When your medical office gets extremely busy, customer care over the phone can become diminished. In-house receptionists can get sidetracked by other tasks, call volumes can spike unexpectedly, and courtesy can be reduced as anxious and uneasy patients grow frustrated and demanding because they don’t feel they are receiving high-quality service.

But all of these things can be avoided by hiring a virtual receptionist company. Outsourcing your receptionist is a smart way to ensure that every call your practice receives is handled with the utmost care and highest standards for customer satisfaction. Communication is a vital component of any business, but where a doctor’s office is concerned, effective communication skills are paramount for the success of the practice.

When you work with a virtual receptionist, your in-house staff can focus on providing exceptional care to patients who are in the office, while patients who are calling to make an appointment or follow-up on a previous visit are also serviced by a highly skilled professional over the telephone. This is also beneficial for any new patients who are calling to schedule their first appointment. When they are greeted by a professional, courteous, and knowledgeable voice on the other end of the telephone, they can feel comfortable about the care they will receive once they walk through your front door.

Professional Quality Support

Virtual receptionists are the smart way to maintain an open line of dialogue between your office and your patients. Calls are handled properly and that assurance of quality will impress your clientele. Happy patients are more willing to refer your practice to their friends, neighbors, and colleagues and that starts with presenting a professional image over the telephone.

Supervised Calls

A good virtual receptionist company is constantly monitoring the quality of every call that is serviced by its employees. This provides a level of expertise that your practice would expect from any member of your medical staff and when call quality suffers, your patients can tell immediately. So hiring a virtual receptionist comes with the assurance that all of your calls are being answered in a professionally monitored environment for the best quality of service.

Patient Satisfaction

Every virtual receptionist is trained in dealing with patient concerns to provide the best experience possible when a patient calls in. Each one is fully trained and certified to work in a customer support capacity. But medical offices require specialized knowledge to make patients feel properly serviced over the phone. They need to know that their doctor’s office cares about their well-being and providing safe reassurance will make the patient feel secure in their choice of medical professional. This means more referrals and repeat business by loyal patients who have no issues making appointments, leaving messages and having them returned in a timely manner, and finding it easy to reach their doctor when they need medical assistance.

Secure Communication

When calls are monitored, they are often recorded. Hiring a virtual receptionist can also give your communications an extra level of security to protect you and your practice in the event of a malpractice or harassment lawsuit. These recordings are stored for a determined amount of time before being discarded. However, they can also serve as a record of contact between a patient and a doctor’s office, even if the call is handled by a representative working remotely. Your communications are also protected by the virtual receptionist service from being audited or monitored by any third party. This preserves patient confidentiality.

Protect Your Reputation

Above all, your practice wants to maintain a high reputation in the industry. Having a virtual receptionist service handling your call volume can work towards that goal by presenting a professional appearance and working with all of your patients in a timely and polite manner. Patient confidentiality is also important, not just over the phone but with the handling of medical records as well. That’s why it’s critical that your reputation isn’t dependent upon a service that is not in compliance with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). Nothing will damage your standing in the profession faster than the assertion that you are working with a service that does not support best practices in the handling of electronic medical records.