In the healthcare industry, it’s vitally important to keep patients happy and make sure they feel comfortable at all times. One of the best ways to do this is with a medical practice phone system that can make your life easier every day by letting you stay on top of communications and keep track of all your appointments and schedules without breaking a sweat.
Here are five major ways that switching over to an advanced phone system will change your life as a doctor or nurse practitioner in the field.
1) More Direct Communication with Patients
It’s been said that knowledge is power, and when it comes to running your medical practice, you’re definitely in need of as much power as possible. A good phone system allows you to stay connected with your patients whenever they have questions or concerns, and make changes to their appointment schedule more easily.
Furthermore, studies have shown that patients who communicate directly with their doctors are happier and healthier than those who don’t. So if you want to increase your patient satisfaction scores and bolster overall performance, improving communication between yourself and your patients should be a top priority.
The first step is getting yourself a modern medical office phone system—like Wavetel’s medical phone system — that provides multiple ways for them to reach out to you.
2) A Virtual Receptionist
A virtual receptionist will put your patients’ minds at ease by answering your phone whenever you’re not available. This can be especially effective if you’re seeing patients in your home office, or have late hours—your phone may ring after hours, which could disturb neighbours or your family.
If you rely on outside help with day-to-day tasks, hiring a virtual receptionist can take some stress off of your plate and allow you to focus on serving patients during regular business hours.
The best part? You only pay for service when you need it! When you schedule appointments during business hours, your receptionist will step in and field calls as needed. When you don’t have any appointments scheduled, they won’t charge anything—it’s that simple!
3) More Availability
One of the biggest benefits of using a medical practice phone system is that it allows you to take calls from patients no matter where you are in your office. With an integrated medical practice phone system, staff members can answer incoming calls at their desktops and transfer them to doctors as necessary.
This makes it easy for everyone to work remotely, allowing for greater flexibility—and increased availability when those inconvenient family emergencies arise. You’ll never have to worry about whether or not your doctor will be able to pick up. And if they can’t, they’ll let you know right away.
4) Cost savings and flexibility
The ability to consolidate phone systems into one and integrate them with existing infrastructure is one of the ways unified communications can save you money. In the healthcare industry, for example, the different phone systems can be consolidated into a single system.
The practice can utilize its existing phone system technology and reduce costs by opting for a platform that is compatible with all SIP-based hardware.
Companies can choose to invest upfront in on-premise equipment or subscribe to a cloud-hosted telephone service on a monthly basis. Furthermore, unified communication systems are regularly updated to ensure your practice remains current with the latest features.
5) Improve Customer Satisfaction
First and foremost, your business must provide great customer service. To do so, you must be able to connect with patients/customers easily and efficiently. A medical phone system can help here as well. When it comes to communication in healthcare, nothing beats face-to-face interaction.
However, you might find that you are spread too thin or have too many responsibilities to see every patient personally. Technology is great when it comes to saving time. This is why most practices use electronic health records (EHRs) and other forms of technology.
EHRs allow doctors to enter notes into a database rather than having to write them out by hand on paper charts. While these technological advances are convenient for doctors, they also create problems. For example, if someone’s chart isn’t updated correctly, they could receive incorrect information about their treatment plan or even an incorrect diagnosis!
Conclusion
Whether you’re starting your medical practice or considering switching systems, it’s important to know that you’re making an informed decision. The potential costs of switching can be hefty, so take your time and do your research. When all is said and done, though, a new phone system could end up saving you money in several ways.
These are just five benefits of having an advanced phone system for your medical practice, but there are many more! For more information on how a modern phone system can help you run your business better, contact the Wavetel support team today. We’d love to talk with you about our VoIP solutions and see if they might work for your practice.