Today's Practice: Changing the Business of Medicine TP2018Q2DigitalEditionWeb | Page 34

MA R K E T I NG
10 Critical Components
6. Excellent, Experienced Operators
96 percent of patient complaints have to do with
customer service rather than care. The most common
complaint? A lack of human communication in custom-
er service. The qulity of the operators can dramtically
impact this impression. These agents must be dual
experts: highly compassionate and effective at customer
service AND industry experts, knowledgeable and
fluent in medical vernacular.
This is a tall order, but what truly seperates an elite
service provider is their dedication to recruitingthe best
in breed - then putting them through rigorous training,
HIPAA certification and rehearsal. The ideal operator
will be friendly, professional, experienced, caring and
highly confidential. The best medical answering services
treat their agents well, as retention is key to providing a
consistent and valuable service.
This time and effort pays off for your practice, as
patients that feel they are cared for and matter to you are
far less likely to search for another medical provider.
7. (Never Miss a) Message Delivery
Answering services in any industry place a high premi-
um on logging and delivering messages. In the medical
industry, however, these messages can literally be a
matter of life and death. Imagine if an asthmatic patient
of yours lost their inhaler, prescribed by you. The phar-
macy needs to hear from you before allowing them to
get the inhaler they need... maybe an obvious generaliza-
tion, but things could go from bad to worse without
receiving your messages in real-time.
Your medical answering service should focus on provid-
ing the perfect message delivery system, reliably deliver-
ing your communication within th eir HIPAA secured
environment, whether it be via SMS, email or other
means.
Escalation is another critical, superior service. For
instance, let’s say a message has been sent but you are not
responding. The patient is still waiting on her inhaler.
Your answering service should work with you to set up
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Don Thaler
an escalating message pattern. If a message marked as
urgent is not responded to within a certain amount of
time, an alert message can be sent, or a protocol
followed, such as a text or call directly to a personal cell
phone or another provider within your care team.
8. “Make Them Earn It” Contracts and Billing
How an answering service bills can reveal a lot. A
medical answering service that is truly confident in the
value of its services will prove itself to you again and
again, without front-loading their costs to mitigate
future retention issues.
Often, the best services will offer no-risk, free trials
that allow you to see the results before deciding to pay
for anything at all. Even then, it may be difficult to
gauge the full value and effectiveness of their service in
such a short time. Services who feel they provide an
elite experience will not push or pressure you into
signing a long-term contract.
To the contrary, they will often use a simple
month-to-month agreement, as they are confident in
their service and expect to prove it to you each time
you flip the calendar. This way, there is never any
anxiety about a drop off in level of service, and your
provider will always be earning your business.
In regards to your provider’s billing cycles, be on the
lookout for any answering service that attempts to bill
on a 28-day cycle rather than monthly. This is a
thinly-veiled attempt to squeeze 13 payments out of a
12-month year. Any legitimate answering services will
bill on a full monthly basis, providing complete trans-
parency in their cycle.
9. Unwavering Reliability
A patient call is unlike that in any other industry, and
should received the warranted attention required. A
person calling about a side effect or possible prescrip-
tion contraindication can’t wait for the power to come
back on at your office or for the snow to melt.
An elite medical answering service will be based in the
TODAY ’ S P R A C T I C E: C H A N G I N G T H E B US I NES S OF M EDI C I NE