Good patient to doctor communications are essential to today’s medical professional. The patient of the 21st Century is looking for a doctor willing to work with him or her to maintain good health, and deal with illness in the most effective manner, and this takes rapport and excellent communication skills. These skills are not only important in the examination room but also after hours. The doctor who maintains a high level of accessibility is assured of a successful practice. This is why an answering service for doctors must be something special.
What’s the Best Service?
If you check with 20 answering service companies you may get 20 different answers to this question. Naturally, each answering service for doctors is going to tell you they are the best choice, but what strategy can you use to separate the great from the mediocre? Let’s start with value for the money.
Is Cost the Most Important Factor?
Many companies will go into great detail to explain why cost is not important. However, the modern medical professional knows better. Besides, the companies playing down the importance of cost are doing this for a very good reason. They are expensive, and they want you to focus elsewhere to take your mind off money. The truth is, an excellent answering service for doctors does not have to cost you a great deal of money, and here is why.
Most services with excessive fees charge their clients by the hour, or by the amount of calls they receive. A medical office can get a lot of phone calls in one day’s time and it won’t take long for the charges to add up. So, what can you do about this? It has to do with flat rate fee services.
What is a Flat Rate Answering Service for Doctors?
To give you an idea of flat rate service, let’s take a look at two different long distance telephone services. Service A charges you only ten cents a minute, claiming it is cheap. However, if you make a lot of long distance calls, it may not be so cheap. For instance, suppose you typically make 4 hours of long distance calls per month. Your bill would be $24.00.
Company B charges you $10 a month and you can make as many calls as you like. No matter what happens, you never pay more than ten dollars. This is how a flat rate answering service for doctors works. It really is this simple and very easy to sign up with these services.
