Call overflow refers to any incoming voice calls that your contact center agents are unable to answer. These excess calls may arise due to short staffing, peak periods, or even an emergency or crisis situation.

When a patient first calls healthcare, that is the first interaction they will experience. The importance of patient service has been stressed countless times in the healthcare profession. The first call is the most important call for your profession, because not only does it set up a connection, but it is also your chance to satisfy the patient’s needs in a productive way that preserves their faith.

First impressions always count with the patient, so if you’re not quickly obtainable when the patient is, you could miss out. 85% of patients will not call back if their call goes unanswered, resulting in missed opportunities for your healthcare occupation.

To make certain you always make the right first impression, call answering services can help provide a consistently high level of patient service.

Importance of Handling High Call Volume:

Ringing phones are usually a normal part of the daily routine at most medical practices. Patients often call to schedule appointments, cancel other appointments, or simply make general inquiries. But during busy days, a ringing phone can be overlooked if your employees have more pressing tasks. Unanswered phone calls can make patients unhappy, if this becomes an ordinary regularity, they may think about switching to a different healthcare provider with whom they can communicate more easily.

High call volume can be a difficulty for patients. Mounting call volume may cause a block in service and make patients feel disappointed. Then it becomes important to presume proper strategies to pick up high call volumes. One way to combat this is by using conversational AI chatbots. According to a report by IBM, conversational chatbots can answer 80% of collective questions, leaving room for your staff to commit their time to what is important.

 4 Ways to Manage Your Call Flow:

Your doctor’s office, hospital, or clinic depends on obtaining and retaining patients.

The patient often calls to ask questions about appointments, procedures, or costs but the hospital staff is not able to attend to every phone call due to more urgent tasks. Missed calls can also make it more difficult to keep an updated schedule, respond to potential patient inquiries, and keep your practice’s operations simple and efficient. Here are some ways in which medical practices may choose to manage overflow calls:

• Outline the process and identify patient touchpoints:
• There are many points of contact patients may make in order to get information, schedule appointments, and communicate with your practice.
• For example, they may use your website to schedule or cancel appointments, then use social media to speak with a representative about definite concerns they may have.
• Other points of contact include the office, telephone, email, and letters.

If patient contacts your practice to schedule an appointment, you must take the following steps:

1. Answering the phone within a specific time limit.
2. Examining the patient’s medical records and service history.
3. Investigating the availability of medical staff.
4. Registering the report from medical staff.
5. Recording the details of the appointment request.
6. Guiding the customer with the appointment date.

Your on-site staff will answer all your phone calls. This is the course of action that many practices take when they begin to get several phone calls. It may seem like the most logical choice since it allows you to work with the staff you already know and trust. Assistants working at a medical practice generally have to handle countless responsibilities daily. They may have to record patients’ information, schedule appointments, arrange supplies for different procedures, contact providers, and perform other various tasks daily. It may not be complicated for on-site staff to handle calls as long as your practice only picks up a few phone calls per day. But if your staff becomes overworked, their work performance will likely increase. They may also be unable to operate each phone call beneficially, and callers won’t get the response that they want from your practice.

If your current on-site staff is unable to handle all of the phone calls your practice receives while also fulfilling their other responsibilities, you should consider establishing a call center at your practice. The process of advertising for a new position, holding interviews, choosing the right candidate, and then providing training is a long and expensive process. Moreover, continuing the call center may not be profitable unless your overflow call volume is entirely appreciable on most days. A call center can also still leave gaps in your practice’s customer service hours, since hiring employees to work shifts that balance your phone lines 24×7 would enlarge the price even more.

Here’s where a third choice occurs: a virtual answering service.

Virtual answering services supply trained operators who are able to answer each phone call warmly and politely. You can modify an answering service to fit your practice’s demand, and you won’t have to panic about teaching each operator. Your practice will demand a certain number of calls that operators have to respond to, which means that you won’t have to be rewarded unless the service is working for you.

How AI 24×7 Bot call Answering service can help:

AI doesn’t take days off for holidays, evenings, or weekends, which means patients can get the answers they need every time they desire them. AI-powered support results offer businesses the capacity to provide definitive customer support, anywhere, anytime.

Compared to staff or human-based call center organizations, it is considerably less expensive.

Simboconnect is one recent example of an AI-powered communication platform that has grown in popularity. It is a medical scheduling tool driven by AI that can place and receive phone calls. It helps medical professionals reduce their workload as it can address up to 30% of queries on its own.

SimboConnect can help with:

• Appointment scheduling requests
• Refill requests
• Callback related inquiries
• Billing requests
• Regular queries like office addresses or hours.

SimboConnect can also automate all outbound calls and triage patients to collect key clinical information or deliver information like post-procedure follow-up, medication change check-ins, and filling out custom patient intake forms, among others.

TOP FIVE THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW BEFORE STARTING YOUR OWN MEDICAL PRACTICE?

Starting your own practice has advantages and disadvantages, just like any other career path. Starting your own practice can give you more control over your daily schedule and patient interactions, as well as greater control over the culture of your practice. Furthermore, you may have more say over your service offerings and earnings.

However, in addition to practicing medicine or dentistry, there is a significant amount of work involved in establishing and managing your own practise, which includes:

• Developing a business plan.
• Obtaining funding.
• Making a lease agreement.
• Providing technology, supplies, and utilities to your practise.
• Recruiting and supervising employees.
• Problem-solving and billing.

How is it difficult but not impossible?

Starting your own medical practice is extremely risky. When it comes to employees and patients, you will be responsible for all upfront costs and legal issues. In addition, you will face competition from community hospitals and other healthcare providers. Take the time before starting your medical practice to understand the level of risk that your business will face.

Every business will face risks, but this should not deter you from starting your own medical practice. However, using strategic tactics to overcome those risks will make or break your company’s success. Learn more about the industry in your area and determine what can harm and benefit your business.

A  medical practice is not like any other type of business. After all, most other types of businesses don’t literally have their customers’ lives in their hands, let alone all of the regulatory concerns that come with the territory. This guide will teach you the fundamentals of what you need to know to get started with your practice. The journey will be long and difficult, but it will now be easier – and likely beneficial.

The top five things before starting your own medical practice:

1. It takes time and patience to establish your own practice:

Setting up a medical practice, whether you intend to work independently with one or two staff members or with other healthcare providers and physicians on your team, takes time, patience, and dedication.

It can be stressful to start your own medical practice. What’s important to understand is that all physicians, regardless of specialty, face roadblocks along the way.

However, there is a way to start your own practice without having to bear the entire burden on your own. We have physicians on staff at Physicians Thrive who have built successful practices and can help you do the same.

Starting a medical practice can be a daunting task. However, if you are successful, you will be able to enjoy your independence.

Starting your own medical practice is an exciting prospect and one that requires careful planning and preparation to make it rewarding, successful and sustainable. Whether you want to set up a general practice or a specialist private practice, there are many things to do before you open your doors.

2. Develop a strategy, business plan, and budget:

A medical clinic, like any other service-based business, is a for-profit entity. While medical practices have more compliance and administrative loops  jump through, you still need to plan for the type of business you want to build, the type of staff and patients you want to attract, and the direction you see the business going in the future.

This is where business strategy and planning come into play. Your strategy outlines what you must do to move your medical practice in the desired direction. It addresses the big picture: your vision, mission, and objectives. What – and who – will make it happen is documented in your business plan.

What should your business plan include:

• Clear, measurable objectives with deadlines.
• Key performance indicators for determining your practice’s success.
• Staff salaries, equipment hire or purchase, premises rental, branding, signage, and marketing, website, clinic fit-out, and furniture are all included in the budget and costs.
• Policies and procedures outlining roles and responsibilities as well as how tasks are to be completed. This ensures that your medical clinic runs smoothly.
• Marketing strategy and budget.

3. Select your location, premises, and demographics:

Choosing a location and premises for your practice is determined by your finances, your future vision, and the community you want to serve. You may also want to consider your lifestyle and career goals as the owner of a medical practice. Consider these:

Where do you want to work in 5 or 15 years?

• Do you want to be near a hospital or other healthcare providers? This can aid in new business referrals.
• How much travel do you want to do?
• How many other competitors are there in the area?
• What is the demographic of the area you’re considering, what services do they require, and how can you best meet their needs?   

4. Begin the insurance credentialing process: 

Yes, you can begin insurance credentialing even if you haven’t decided on a practice location. This is a lengthy process, and while changing your address later with payers can be inconvenient, not being paid for rendering services when you open will sting even more. You can temporarily use your home address or obtain a temporary address.

5. Software for medical transcription.

Consider how medical transcription will fit into your practice. A medical business can typically perform transcription in one of three ways: in-house with a staff member, using voice recognition software, or outsourcing to a medical transcription service. The most important factors are timeliness and accuracy; you want your dictations back in print as soon as possible, but only if they’re accurate, especially if they’re going to another healthcare provider or being uploaded into your EHR system. If you’re thinking about medical transcription and aren’t sure which method is best for you, check out our list of the best medical transcription companies.

Simbo.AI:

Simbo is an AI-powered bot designed to assist junior doctors. It meets with patients to understand their complaints, records vitals and presents a summary to the doctor, listens to and understands the doctor-patient conversation, takes instructions from doctors, and then generates an EMR for them. Brain-Inspired Spoken Language Understanding is the technology employed (BISLU).

The Simbo.AI software can assist.

The Simbo.AI software is good for doctors and help to starters on their  medical practice in the following ways:

No-hassle in documentation.

There will be no lengthy dictations or typing. Simbo will complement your style as you use it.

Save up to 90 minutes.

Each clinic day, you can save up to 90 minutes. What do you intend to do with that time?

Concentrate on your patients.

When you no longer have to worry about your documentation, you will be able to focus on true patient care!

“Timing, perseverance, and ten years of effort will eventually make you appear to be an overnight success.”