Medical Answering Service

Updated 12/1/2006

Medical telephone answering service call processing must be handled quickly, accurately and with sensitivity to the caller, as well as to the on-call physician. The protocols used at Centratel have been honed over a twenty one year history; Centratel Telephone Service Representatives (TSRs) have processed literally tens of millions of medical answering service calls. Providing unmatched levels of professionalism, accuracy and value, we’re poles apart from the traditional call center or telephone answering service.

Have you come to this website because your current medical answering service is not performing? If so, you are not alone. Nearly 100% of our newest medical accounts came to us because they were dissatisfied with their former provider. For a comprehensive over-view of how Centratel is able to maintain a customer reported error rate of one error per 9,100+ message transactions (July through September 2006), see company president and majority owner Sam Carpenter's letter, "Why Centratel."

Centratel medical answering service covers after-hours primary coverage and daytime telephone answering service backup for the entire spectrum of medical practices including, but certainly not limited to, Internal Medicine, OB/GYN, Pediatrics, Ophthalmology, Urology and Orthopedics. We handle clinics with dozens of physicians as well as offices with just one physician.

Compensation for our Telephone Service Representative (TSR) and customer service personnel is keyed directly to their own personal performance and is 50% higher than average for the industry. Every one of our staff members is a full-time, career professional; We don't employ part-time staff as is common with most medical answering services. A sizeable percentage of our staff, including TSRs and administrative people, are single women with children. Our compensation benchmark is our policy of paying enough for these single parents to support their families AND "have a life." Full-time career people who are well compensated based on their own personal performance, are people who are very serious about what they do. In a medical telephone answering service, a critical element in offering the highest service quality is in maintaining low staff turnover: At Centratel, staff turnover is rare. Many TSRs have tenures of five years and up to seventeen years. They really know their jobs and they work very, very hard to get it right.

Absolutely dependable, it's the job of the Centratel TSR to exactly follow carefully put together, black-and-white relay instructions in order to find a balance between needlessly disturbing your on-call doctor and efficiently connecting him or her to patients who truly need immediate assistance. Once the unique relay protocol has been established for the new account, it is followed tenaciously by TSRs unless they have been given real-time instructions otherwise. With feedback and guidance from literally thousands of physicians, and after processing literally tens of millions of urgent calls, we've perfected medical answering service 1-2-3 step relay procedures to provide nearly zero-defect call screening/dispatch processes.

Each Centratel TSR uses the absolute latest and most dependable 100% digital call processing equipment available. Ours is a complex business: All primary systems are redundant and backup systems are readily available. Centratel's MCSE certified call center engineer is available 24/7 in the remote chance of a systems malfunction. With medical answering service, we believe there is too much on the line to offer anything less.

The Medical Exchange doctor's hotline is for physicians only. This is a unique offering from a medical telephone answering service: when a call comes to the operations department on this line, TSR’s take special action, giving the calling physician #1 priority.

We are the face of your clinic when you're not there. Your non-emergency calls must also be handled quickly, professionally and in a friendly way. Typically these messages are delivered to your office via Email or fax, at set times during the day. They can also be delivered as-taken, real-time. Every call counts!

All calls are digitally recorded, providing a solid record of any conversation between our TSR and your caller. This is a critical element in protecting the clinic from liability as experience shows that well over 90% of caller complaints are due to misunderstandings or outright errors on the caller's part.

At Centratel your office personnel have a direct connection to a specific Customer Service Representative. Our customer service department is organized so that you will have one person assigned to your answering service account who handles all client issues directly with the answering service manager. Your Customer Service Representative (CSR) will know your people personally and understand your account intimately. Indirectly becoming a part of the clinic staff, your CSR is friendly, professional and dependable. After-hours, and in the absence of your assigned CSR, a skilled on-site Operations Supervisor will be immediately available to answer questions or handle unusual situations.

Yes, we do cost a bit more than the average medical answering service. However, Centratel's rates are reasonable and as an additional, dramatic cost-cutter, approximately 95% of medical offices use our option called "Gold Service," an automated greeting/information option that intercepts the patient's call for initial screening and provides general information. Medical clinic managers appreciate the Gold Service system as it is dramatically less expensive than having every caller speak directly with a TSR. On average, compared to "all live" answering, clinics save 20% to 30% with the system. Office hours, directions to the clinic and the ability to leave a message are all contained within the automated greeting. Patients appreciate the Gold Service system as they are on and off the line quickly after retrieving the information they need, or after leaving a message for your office. By pressing zero on their dial pad, or by simply staying on the line, callers who must speak with the on-call physician are quickly routed to a Centratel TSR. Of course, we also handle clinics that do not use this screening system; for these accounts, each caller speaks immediately with our TSR.

Medical telephone answering service is our primary product and we do everything we can to match the needs of the doctor with what works in the real world.

For more information check the rest of this website. You may also apply for service through this site. Or, give us a call at 800-664-7159