Ways to Manage Call Overflow in Healthcare Practice

Call overflow occurs when incoming voice calls to your contact center exceed the capacity of your agents to answer them. This situation can result from various factors, including inadequate staffing, busy periods, or unexpected emergencies.

The initial call a patient makes to a healthcare provider is crucial; it represents their first interaction with the practice. The significance of delivering exceptional patient service in healthcare cannot be overstated. That first call is your opportunity not just to establish a connection but also to effectively address the patient’s needs and build their trust.

First impressions matter immensely to patients. If you aren’t available to take their call when they reach out, you risk losing them. Research reveals that 85% of patients won’t call back if their previous call goes unanswered, leading to missed opportunities that can impact your practice.

To consistently create a positive first impression, utilizing call answering services can enhance the level of patient service you provide.

Why It’s Crucial to Manage High Call Volume:

For many medical practices, ringing phones are a routine part of the day. Patients often call to set up, cancel, or inquire about appointments. However, during peak times, phone calls can easily slip through the cracks if your staff is overwhelmed with pressing tasks. Ignored calls can lead to patient dissatisfaction, and if this becomes a pattern, they may seek care from a competitor who can communicate more effectively.

High call volumes can frustrate patients and hinder service delivery. To navigate this challenge, it’s essential to implement effective strategies for managing increased call traffic. One efficient approach is incorporating conversational AI chatbots. IBM reports that these chatbots can address 80% of common inquiries, freeing staff to focus on more critical tasks.

4 Strategies to Optimize Call Management:

Your medical office, clinic, or hospital must secure and retain patients.

Patients may call with questions about their appointments, procedures, or costs—but staff may be occupied with other urgent matters. Missed calls can disrupt scheduling and make it challenging to address inquiries efficiently. Here are ways that medical practices can better manage overflow calls:

• Map out the process and identify patient interaction points:
• Patients have various options to get information, book appointments, and communicate with your practice.
• For instance, they might use your website for scheduling or social media for specific inquiries.
• Additional contact methods include in-person visits, phone calls, emails, and letters.

When a patient reaches out to schedule an appointment, ensure to:

1. Answer the phone within an established time frame.
2. Review the patient’s medical history.
3. Check the availability of medical staff.
4. Document feedback from the medical staff.
5. Record details about the appointment request.
6. Guide the patient towards scheduling an appointment date.

Often, on-site staff will manage all incoming calls, particularly in practices just starting to receive a higher call volume. While this might seem practical since you have familiar staff, assistants in medical practices juggle many daily responsibilities, including recording patient information and coordinating supplies. Handling calls can be manageable when the call volume is low, but when it spikes, staff may become overburdened, leading to diminished performance and unsatisfactory patient experiences.

If your on-site staff cannot manage the volume of calls while also performing their other necessary duties, it may be time to consider establishing a dedicated call center at your practice. However, hiring new staff involves a lengthy and costly process, and maintaining a call center might not be cost-effective unless the overflow is consistent. Additionally, even a call center may leave gaps in service availability, especially if trying to round-the-clock coverage escalates costs further.

This is where a virtual answering service comes into play.

Virtual answering services offer trained operators who can warmly and politely handle every call. You can customize these services to meet your practice’s needs without the burden of training each operator. By stipulating a certain number of calls for the operators to manage, you only incur costs when the service proves beneficial for your practice.

How an AI-Powered 24/7 Call Answering Service Can Assist:

AI doesn’t require time off for holidays, evenings, or weekends, ensuring that patients can access information whenever they need it. AI-driven support empowers businesses to deliver effective customer assistance at any moment.

Compared to traditional staff-based call centers, AI solutions tend to be significantly more affordable.

Simboconnect is a notable example of an AI-driven communication platform gaining traction. This medical scheduling tool leverages AI to handle both incoming and outgoing calls, significantly easing the workload of medical professionals by managing approximately 30% of inquiries autonomously.

SimboConnect can assist with:

• Scheduling appointments
• Refill requests
• Callback inquiries
• Billing inquiries
• Common queries like office hours or locations.

SimboConnect can also automate outbound calls and triage patients to gather essential clinical information or to provide details like post-procedure follow-ups, medication changes, and custom patient intake forms, among other tasks.