Blog Posts

Too many phone calls, not enough staff

Although I try to be as self-sufficient as possible online, I inevitably end up calling or talking to many practices to schedule visits for myself or my family or when I have a question that I can’t find an answer to on their website or patient portal.

When I do have to call in, I look for a time in my schedule when I have at least a half hour in case I end up on hold or in a queue listening to a recorded message over and over. It’s usually worth the effort, but it can be frustrating and time consuming when you don’t have the time or the patience to wait for a live person to pick up the phone.

Most practices, of all sizes, are looking for the best way to manage phone calls during the day and after hours. There are several factors that may affect a practice’s ability to manage patient calls during the day, and most of them have to do with too many phone calls and not enough staff to cover them. One way to deal with a large volume of calls and not enough staff is to prioritize which calls get answered by a live person, and which go to voicemail. However, this isn’t ideal, because in this shuffle things can be missed. And while recorded advertisements for your practice are helpful while a patient is waiting to talk to someone, how many people stay on the line after the first few loops of the same message?

I’m happy our November App of the Month can help address some of these challenges.

Manage calls during the day

This solution enables users to dictate which calls go to a live staff member, and which calls can go to CallMyDoc to be transcribed and handled by either a call back to the patient through the app or a message to the patient through the patient portal. No more voicemail, no more looking up charts and no more writing things down.

Manage calls after hours

Medicare, commercial payers and various state payers contractually require certain standards in responding to calls after hours. To help practices demonstrate compliance with their contractually required after-hours requirements, this service offers after-hours coverage procedures.

For instance, by using CallMyDoc, a practice can meet and exceed contractually required after-hours requirements. The app can set up what type of calls each provider receives as well as how and when they are notified. CallMyDoc also enables the provider to instantly see the patient’s demographics and a transcription of why the patient is calling for easy determination of next steps. And with one click, they call the patient back or use the automated app call backs. CallMyDoc provides a summary of the three most recent visits and three most recent lab results and can send refills and new prescriptions with instructions on where to pick up. Finally, the app documents the call in real time and puts all action items back in the patient’s chart upon call completion, These capabilities drastically reduce the time clinicians spend on phone calls afterhours, while still ensuring the best care possible.

If you have been looking for a solution to help manage your call volume, register for our webinar on Tuesday, Nov. 30 at 1 p.m. ET to learn more about CallMyDoc.