Dealing With an Emergency
By their nature, emergencies are never on anybody’s to-do list. Many of us don’t know how we’ll react when an urgent situation arises, and medical emergencies can be especially troubling. According to CDC, 130 million emergencies happen in the US daily, and a physician’s office has to be prepared to take care of these circumstances. Otherwise, the patients will become dissatisfied with their services and eventually find care elsewhere. Fortunately, a quality medical answering service can help better serve your clients. Specifically, an emergency medical dispatch service can assist both your patients and your office with urgent medical situations. Here are just five must-haves with a quality emergency dispatch service.
24-Hour Answering Services
Emergencies have no concept of time or convenience. When there is a medical issue, your patients need answers, and you want them to get the best care possible. Medical answering service will answer your phones 24 hours a day and have appropriate protocols to deal with urgent matters.
Live Call Center Operators
Your patients should never have to listen to a recording or be placed on hold during an emergency. A top emergency medical dispatch service will have live call operators trained to handle medical calls. The call operators will understand your procedures, know the specifics of your protocol and specialized terminology, and act as an extension of your medical facility.
Call and Message Forwarding Services
Some urgent calls will need your immediate attention. You should be able to specify the protocols for handling all emergency medical dispatch calls. Calls of a particular type or from selected patients can be forwarded to you via telephone or SMS messaging. You are in complete control of the triage process.
Appointment Scheduling Services
Fortunately, not all calls that come into a medical phone answering service will be urgent. If the patient doesn’t need emergency care, an appointment-setting service can speak with them about a convenient time to come in. In addition, your office’s appointment calendar will sync with the services database so that no further data entry will be necessary.
Bilingual Support
If a Spanish-speaking patient calls into your office with an emergency and you cannot communicate with them, they will either need to contact someone else or may not get the help they require. A professional medical answering service will provide live bilingual answering services to your clients so that each patient can have their needs met.
Have More Questions?
In times of crisis, top service, reliability, and the highest level of care are essential in an answering service. Contact us to learn more about medical answering and dispatch services at 888-588-9800 and ask for our no-obligation free consultation.
