The Highest Quality Telephone Answering Service in the United States

Centratel

Telephone Answering Service

hospice call answering service

Enhancing Operational Efficiency in Home Health and Hospice with a Professional Call Answering Service

December 8, 2023
Home Healthcare & Hospice
By Centratel

Call Management Efficiency with an After Hours Hospice Phone Service

Efficient call management, particularly during after hours, is a critical aspect of hospice care. An after hours hospice phone service can be a game-changer in this regard. At Centratel, we understand the unique challenges faced by home health and hospice providers. Our specialized Hospice Answering Service is designed to address these challenges head-on. We provide round-the-clock support, ensuring that no call goes unanswered, no matter the hour. This not only minimizes interruptions but also ensures that urgent calls are promptly attended to. 

Our service is a seamless extension of your compassionate care, providing comfort and support to patients and their families during their most vulnerable moments. With our stringent screening process, we filter out non-essential calls, allowing you to focus on what truly matters – providing quality care to your patients. In an industry where every second counts, our after hours hospice phone service can make all the difference.

The Role of a 24/7 Answering Service in Hospice Care Cost Reduction

Our 24/7 answering service plays a pivotal role in the cost reduction of hospice care. With the Centratel Hospice Answering Service, we provide round-the-clock availability, ensuring that every call is answered promptly and professionally. This not only reduces the burden on your in-house staff but also significantly cuts down on operational costs, by removing the need for extended office hours and additional administrative staff. By handling calls outside of regular business hours, we eliminate the necessity for hospice care providers to hire extra personnel for evening, night, and weekend shifts. This means that resources that would have been allocated to recruiting, training, and maintaining a larger workforce can be redirected toward enhancing patient care services. 

Our service is not just about answering calls; it’s about providing compassionate support to patients and their families during their most challenging times. 

We understand the importance of quality of life and palliative comfort in hospice care, and our dedicated team is trained to handle sensitive situations with the utmost care and respect. Our commitment to patient well-being and care coordination is unwavering, and we strive to ensure that every interaction is a positive one. By entrusting us with your call answering needs, you can focus on what truly matters – providing high-quality medical care and end-of-life support to your patients. With Centratel, you can be assured of reliable, cost-effective, and compassionate 24/7 support for your hospice care services.

Streamlining Patient Communication with a Hospice Answering Service

Streamlining patient communication is a cornerstone of effective hospice care. Our Hospice Answering Service is a testament to this belief, providing a conduit for seamless interaction between patients, their families, and your medical team. We understand the importance of clear, timely communication in the home health and hospice industry. Our service is designed to ensure that every call is answered promptly, every message is delivered accurately, and every concern is addressed with the utmost care and compassion. 

Hospice Call Answering Service Impact on Efficiency

As a leading provider of Hospice Answering Services, we understand the profound impact our services have on operational efficiency. Our specialized team, trained in medical and hospice care, ensures seamless communication, allowing home health and hospice professionals to focus on their core responsibilities – providing quality care to their patients. By handling routine tasks such as call answering, we free up valuable time for caregivers and medical staff, enhancing their ability to deliver compassionate and personal care. Our Hospice Answering Service is not just about taking calls; it’s about being a reliable partner in the care coordination process. We understand the importance of each call and our commitment to patient well-being and care management is unwavering, ensuring that the comfort and support of the patient is never compromised. This commitment, coupled with our stringent screening process and HIPAA compliant message delivery systems, ensures that we deliver a service that is not only efficient but also secure and reliable.

Time Management in Patient Care

Time management in patient care is a critical aspect of home health and hospice services. With our specialized Hospice Answering Service, we provide a solution that allows healthcare professionals to focus on their primary responsibilities – delivering quality care and compassionate support to their patients. We handle the routine tasks of call answering, ensuring that each call is addressed promptly and professionally. 

Our stringent screening process ensures that only urgent calls interrupt your workflow, thus minimizing interruptions and enhancing operational efficiency. We understand the importance of care coordination in home health and hospice care, and our services are designed to support this crucial aspect. With our Hospice Answering Service, we provide a seamless extension of your services, ensuring that your patients and their families receive the attention they deserve, while you focus on providing quality care and improving patient outcomes. Our commitment to patient well-being and care management is unwavering, ensuring that the comfort and support of the patient is never compromised. This commitment, coupled with our HIPAA compliant message delivery systems, ensures that we deliver a service that is not only efficient but also secure and reliable.

Discover the Centratel Difference: Get a Free Quote Today

At Centratel, we understand the intricacies of the home health and hospice industry. Our Hospice Answering Service is designed to alleviate the burden of call management, allowing you to focus on what truly matters – providing compassionate, quality care to your patients. Our commitment to accuracy and speed is unmatched, with a proven track record of the lowest error rate in the industry. We are proud to offer a service that is not only efficient but also reliable, with a clear and predictable cost structure. Our Hospice Answering Service is a seamless extension of your services, ensuring that patients and their families receive the attention they deserve, 24/7. We understand the importance of privacy in healthcare, which is why we provide HIPAA compliant message delivery systems, ensuring that confidential information remains confidential. Our Hospice Answering Service is more than just an answering service, it’s a partnership. We are dedicated to enhancing patient well-being and ensuring the continuity of your services. Discover the Centratel difference today.

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A Telephone Answering Service Representative taking calls at Centratel

Centratel, based in Bend, Oregon, is a leading national telephone answering service with a specialized focus on the Home Health and Hospice sector. This service offers unmatched support to a wide range of healthcare businesses throughout the United States, ensuring effective and seamless communication solutions around the clock. Renowned for its exceptional quality and reliability, Centratel is recognized as the top answering service in the Home Health and Hospice industry, consistently outperforming competitors in both performance and client satisfaction.

Taking the Next Step

For more specifics on cost, to start the onboarding process, or to just talk to us, fill out this form with your basic information and if it’s during regular working hours (M-F 8am to 8pm EST or 5am to 5pm PST), we’ll get back to you within minutes. Or, during the above hours, you can simply call us at 800-664-7159 or send us an email to inquiry@centratel.com.

(And note: for a quick orientation on how we operate, take a moment to review one or more of the key points listed below.)

For more specifics on cost, to start the onboarding process, or to just talk to us, fill out this form with your basic information and if it’s during regular working hours (M-F 8am to 8pm EST or 5am to 5pm PST), we’ll get back to you within minutes. Or, during the above hours, you can simply call us at 800-664-7159 or send us an email to inquiry@centratel.com.

(And note: for a quick orientation on how we operate, take a moment to review one or more of the key points listed on the right.)

Terms of Service

Why Choose Centratel

BY SAM CARPENTER
September 1, 2024

1.CENTRATEL’S UNIQUE 30-DAY FREE TRIAL

Why is this important? Because it will provide you a truly accurate estimate of cost (we bill monthly), it will demonstrate our quality, and it gives both sides of this equation—you and Centratel—the necessary time to refine and perfect operational details.

Here’s a testimonial from a new medical client that had just finished their 30-day trial: “Of course, I love the cost as it is close to the amount I was allowed by the president of the company. I told him that if we did not continue with Centratel, I would resign as the Director of Customer Service, and I meant it. It’s a great fit. We have had NOT ONE complaint from a patient or in-house which, as you know, we received daily with our former answering service. I love you, Centratel, and the price. I’m ready to sign whatever documents you require. Thanks for the great service, and the free month! To a great partnership! -KB, Phoenix“

2.STATISTICALLY, THE BEST IN THE U.S.?

Answering service quality is 100% dependent on human action and reaction, and in the course of a single day a multitude of human decisions are made by the people who process the calls: Telephone Service Representatives, or TSRs. (Some answering services refer to them as “agents.” Others, “operators.”)

Like any other answering service, at Centratel we’re dealing with real live human beings and so human errors occur. But within this labor intensive service industry that is historically known for marginal quality, Centratel’s error rate is light years ahead of established standards. Our most recent Customer Reported Error Rate (April through June, 2024) was 1 customer-reported error for every 6,491 message transactions processed. That statistic is unmatched.

There’s no artificial intelligence manipulation, we do not offshore calls, and we were founded and have always operated within the United States. (Note that since early 2020, the COVID six-foot social distancing mandate drove thousands of small-to-medium sized answering services out of business. Large, foreign-owned multi-nationals, often disguised by the name of the local answering services they acquired, now thoroughly dominate the industry. Hence, an even further decline in general service quality. See this analysis.)

3.CUSTOMER SERVICE EXTRAORDINAIRE

Your concerns and requests will be instantly acted upon. It’s a work ethic that stands out in stark contrast from the general quality decline in human-to-human business-customer communications. You’ve seen it yourself, all around. At Centratel you will know the customer service people you’re working with by name, appreciating their special listening abilities as well as their take-action-now comportments i.e. see the testimonial in point #1 above. ‘Nuff said!

4.GETTING STARTED: IT’S SIMPLE AND FAST

Getting your new Centratel answering service 30-day free trial started is accomplished within 24-48 hours. From the start, your “onboarding” customer service representative will be with you every step of the way, listening carefully to your concerns, answering questions, and offering suggestions.

5.NEW TO USING AN ANSWERING SERVICE?

A majority of our current answering service accounts switched to us from another service because of quality problems. However, if you have not used a service before, you are not familiar with the options, benefits, and pitfalls. As noted, our 30-day free trial provides you—and us—plenty of time to precisely refine your desired message-taking and delivery protocols; to get things exactly the way you want them to be without any financial risk, undue pressure, or obligation. 

6.PRICING

Starting at $89 per month, our rates rank in the mid-range of the industry. For call processing, we charge by the “transaction unit” rather than the duration of time spent handling calls. The three “mega-services” in operation in the U.S. prefer time billing because it ensures the company is compensated for lower-paid/high-turnover —and thus slower— agents. In any answering service, it takes a long time for a new agent to become fast, efficient, and stable. At Centratel, we have always sought to retain experienced agents (via higher pay and great benefits) and, therefore, engender low staff turnover. Needless to say, experienced agents make fewer errors than trainees who learn on-the-job.

7.ACCURATELY COMPARING ANSWERING SERVICE PRICING IS COMPLICATED

It’s apples and oranges. There isn’t an industry standard for billing, and each answering service has its own formula. Also, as noted above, some services charge by “time” while others charge by “work units.” Others combine the two. At Centratel, we charge for the work we do, not by the time we spend. The raw truth is that the only reliable way to determine monthly cost for a new service is to use that service for a solid month. Most answering services offer a 7-day free trial or no trial at all.

8.BEWARE: MONTHLY OR 28-DAY BILLING?

Important! At Centratel, we use a “monthly” billing cycle in which invoices are compiled from the first day of a month to the last day of that month. When soliciting quotes from other services, be sure to ask if the base-rate charges are billed monthly or on a “28-day billing cycle.” There is no good reason for a 28-day billing cycle! It’s bait-and-switch: customers billed on a 28-day cycle actually receive thirteen billings per year and therefore the overall cost is higher.

9.NO CONTRACT AND SIMPLE TERMS OF SERVICE

We do not require a yearly contract for service because we believe you should have the opportunity to evaluate us real-time, without restraint. Our terms of service are simple and straight-forward.

10.VALUABLE FREE GIFT FOR CONTACTING US

If you take the time to discuss answering service with us, on the same day we will ship you a hardcover copy of Sam Carpenter’s bestselling book, Work The System: The Simple Mechanics of Making More and Working Less, now in its 4th edition…but soon to be released in a 5th edition (August 2024). We’ll send you a copy of this 5th edition, too, when it’s released. (Sam is the founder and President of Centratel. December 1st 2024 marks his fortieth year of ownership.)