The Highest Quality Telephone Answering Service in the United States

Centratel

Telephone Answering Service

medical live answering service

Transforming Healthcare Administration: A Live Answering Service as a Solution to Staff Workload Challenges

January 3, 2024
Medical
By Centratel

Mitigating Staff Workload: The Role of a Live Medical Answering Service

As the healthcare industry evolves, the need for a live medical answering service to mitigate staff workload becomes increasingly apparent. The relentless influx of patient calls and emergency dispatches can overwhelm even the most efficient healthcare staff. This is where Centratel’s medical answering service steps in, acting as a virtual extension of your clinic or hospital. Our professional operators, available 24/7, handle each call with the utmost care and precision, ensuring a seamless communication experience for both your staff and patients. We understand the critical nature of every call in the healthcare sector. 

Our service guarantees prompt response times and accurate message delivery, providing your staff with the support they need to focus on their core responsibilities. With our secure and confidential message handling, we uphold the highest standards of data privacy, offering peace of mind for both healthcare providers and patients. By integrating our service into your healthcare system, you can transform your administrative workflows, improving patient interaction and overall quality of care.

The Burden of Administrative Tasks in Healthcare

Healthcare administration is a complex labyrinth of tasks, often burdening the medical clinic staff with an overwhelming workload. The incessant ringing of phones, the constant need for patient care coordination, and the relentless administrative duties can lead to burnout, affecting the overall efficiency of a healthcare establishment. This is where a live answering service steps in, transforming the way healthcare administration operates. By handling the influx of calls, a live answering service allows the clinic staff to focus on what truly matters – providing quality healthcare. It acts as a virtual receptionist, available 24/7, ensuring that no call goes unanswered, no patient query is missed by your staff, and no administrative task is overlooked. This not only streamlines the workflow but also enhances the patient experience, fostering a sense of trust and reliability. The role of a live answering service in healthcare is not just limited to administrative assistance. It also ensures secure and confidential communication, adhering to HIPAA regulations, and providing peace of mind that patient data is safe. Thus, a live answering service is not just a solution to staff workload challenges, but a catalyst for transforming healthcare administration.

Medical Call Answering: A Solution to Overwhelmed Staff

Amidst the intricate web of healthcare administration, the medical clinic staff often grapples with an overwhelming influx of calls, leading to increased stress and decreased efficiency. Overwhelmed staff are a common challenge, often struggling to juggle numerous responsibilities. The implementation of a live answering service offers a compelling solution to this issue. This is where the transformative power of a medical call answering service comes into play. 

Acting as a lifeline for overburdened staff, it ensures that every call is addressed promptly and professionally, 24/7. This not only alleviates the pressure on the staff but also enhances the patient experience, fostering a sense of trust and reliability. The beauty of a live answering service lies in its ability to seamlessly integrate into existing workflows, providing a much-needed respite for overburdened healthcare workers. In essence, a live answering service becomes an invaluable extension of the clinic’s team, adeptly managing call volume and allowing staff to focus on critical in-person patient care. The repeated use of a live answering service demonstrates a commitment to both staff well-being and patient satisfaction, transforming the dynamics of healthcare administration.

Innovative Solutions for Modern Healthcare Administration

Embracing innovative solutions for modern healthcare administration is no longer an option but a necessity. The rapid evolution of the healthcare sector demands a dynamic approach to managing patient calls and administrative tasks. This is where our live answering service shines, offering a robust solution to the challenges faced by medical clinic staff. Our service is not just about answering calls; it’s about enhancing the efficiency of your healthcare administration, ensuring every patient interaction is handled with utmost professionalism and empathy. Embracing a live answering service represents a forward-thinking approach, offering a blend of technology and personalized care. The integration of a live answering service into healthcare systems embodies innovation at its finest, providing a sophisticated yet user-friendly solution for handling patient communication.

A live answering service acts as a pivotal tool in modernizing healthcare administration, adeptly bridging the gap between technology and human touch. Our 24/7 availability ensures no call goes unanswered, no patient query goes unaddressed, and no medical emergency goes unnoticed. With our HIPAA compliant message delivery systems, we ensure that every piece of information, every patient record, and every medical data remains confidential and secure. Our commitment to providing a seamless communication experience transforms the way your clinic or hospital operates, allowing your staff to focus on their core responsibilities, thus improving the overall quality of care. Embrace the future of healthcare administration with our innovative live medical answering service.

Transforming Healthcare Workflows with a Live Answering Service

Transforming healthcare workflows is a critical aspect of modern healthcare administration. The introduction of a live answering service into the healthcare workflow can significantly alleviate staff workload, ensuring a smooth and efficient operation. The live answering service is not just a tool, but a strategic partner, working round the clock to ensure that every call is addressed promptly and professionally. It is a catalyst for change, transforming the traditional healthcare workflow into a streamlined, efficient system.

Our medical live answering service’s incorporation into daily operations signifies a transformative shift in handling patient phone calls, releasing valuable time for medical staff to focus on direct patient care. The consistent use of a live answering service in healthcare workflows signifies an evolution in patient management, aligning with the goals of improved care and optimized administrative processes. This integration exemplifies how a live answering service can be more than just a support mechanism; it’s a transformative element in modern healthcare workflows.

How a Medical Answering Service Improves Patient Interaction

Enhancing patient interaction is a pivotal role of a medical answering service. It serves as a lifeline, ensuring continuity in patient communication, even after-hours. The professional and empathetic approach of our live operators ensures that every call is treated with the importance it deserves, be it an emergency or a routine inquiry. Our live answering service is not merely a call center; it is a virtual extension of your medical practice, providing round-the-clock support to your patients. Our operators are trained to handle a wide array of calls, ensuring that your patients receive timely and accurate responses from your team. The service also ensures that all patient data is handled with utmost confidentiality, adhering to stringent healthcare regulations. This not only enhances patient trust but also improves the overall patient experience. By ensuring a seamless flow of communication, a medical answering service plays a crucial role in improving patient interaction, and making healthcare more accessible and efficient.

Transform Your Practice with Our Medical Answering Service

Experience the transformative power of our medical answering service and witness a significant shift in your practice’s efficiency and patient satisfaction. Our service is designed to cater to the unique needs of various medical practices, from Primary Care and Internal Medicine to OBGYN, Pediatrics, and Orthopedics. We understand the intricate dynamics of healthcare communication and the importance of prompt, accurate, and compassionate response. 

Our professional operators are available 24/7, ensuring that every call, every patient query, and every emergency is addressed promptly and with the utmost professionalism. We offer a customized communication approach for each medical office we serve, ensuring that every call is handled with accuracy and empathy. Our HIPAA compliant message delivery systems provide secure and confidential communication, giving you the peace of mind that patient information will remain confidential. Our service is not just about answering calls; it’s about transforming your practice, improving patient interaction, and relieving your staff of the burden of managing overwhelming call volumes. Witness the transformation in your practice with our medical answering service. Get a Free Quote today and experience the difference.

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A Telephone Answering Service Representative taking calls at Centratel

Centratel is an elite national telephone answering service located in Bend, Oregon. Its Medical Answering Service assists hundreds of practices both during and after business hours throughout the United States. By a variety of statistics, it is the highest quality answering service among the approximately 800 services nationwide.

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.)