Improving the Patient Experience
Taking care of patients is your top priority, and taking your inbound calls is ours. Why risk missing important calls or distracting your staff when you can depend on a trusted team of telephone operators trained to take calls for your office? At Absent Answer, we have been answering physician office calls for over 30 years, and our solutions are designed to meet the needs of your practice while delivering an exceptional telephone experience to your patients and staff.
Live operator physician answering services from Absent Answer can help with:
Extending your office hours
Healthcare needs don’t stop when your office closes. And if your office is busy, patients won’t like waiting on hold. Physician answering services from Absent Answer are available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Whether we’re answering after hours patient calls or simply providing overflow coverage for those busy periods when your front desk staff can’t take every call, you can always depend on our team of medical receptionists to be available and ready to take calls on your behalf.
Improving patient call quality
Calls to your practice are important, and every detail impacts the patient experience. From the tone of the operator’s voice to their level of understanding and ability to efficiently process the patient’s request, every step presents an opportunity to either improve the quality of care or generate friction. We recognize the importance of these calls and train every agent on physician call types to ensure each and every patient interaction we’re responsible for results in an exceptional experience.
Reducing practice overhead costs
Hiring receptionists to handle all of your telephone answering needs would be a significant expense. Whereas office staff may be busy all day, after hours call volume is often intermittent, and hiring dedicated staff to sit idle would be a waste of resources. Our answering service operators are available around the clock, but unlike employees, you only pay us for the time you need. With Absent Answer, you can ensure every call is answered live without increasing your payroll. Our medical call center agents are highly trained customer service representatives who can deliver the level of service your patients expect at a fraction of the cost.
Providing secure, HIPAA compliant messaging
Every aspect of our physician answering service is HIPAA compliant. From the telephone recordings and software systems to the encrypted methods used to deliver secure communications, every step of the process is setup to ensure patient privacy remains fully intact. Our secure text messaging service even allows doctors or on-call personnel to send and receive secure messages on their smartphones using a dedicated secure messaging application.
Experienced answering service for doctors
Experienced answering service for doctors
Physician answering services from Absent Answer give doctors a dependable, 24 hour solution for handling their phone calls and telephone communication needs. Originally founded with doctors, our call center services are designed to function as an extension of your practice, triaging calls per your instructions, taking messages, handling routine office calls, and ensuring only true emergencies reach on-call physicians or personnel.
With over three decades experience managing the telephone answering needs of physicians throughout the state of Florida and across the United States, we can help you deliver exceptional patient care without increasing the costs of running your practice.
Whether you need an after hours answering service for a large physician group or daytime overflow support for a solo practice, our friendly receptionists are ready to assist, answering calls in the name of your practice and giving patients the level of service they’ve come to expect from your office.
Tailored solutions for your practice
Tailored solutions for your practice
At Absent Answer, we understand that every medical practice is unique. That’s why we offer customized solutions to meet your specific needs. From scripting and on-call contact methods to escalation protocols, we tailor our services to align with your practice’s preferences.
We ensure seamless integration and enhance practice efficiency by adapting to your existing systems and workflows. Experience the benefits of personalized care and streamlined communication by partnering with Absent Answer. Contact us today to discuss your practice’s requirements and discover how our tailored solutions can elevate patient care.
Answering Service Features
Why send important calls to voicemail after business hours? With Absent Answer, you never have to miss a phone call again. After hours answering services ensure there’s always someone available to take your calls.
Our physician telephone answering services include:
How a Doctor Answering Service Works
Having Absent Answer answer calls for your practice is easier than you think. It’s as simple as establishing your account instructions, training our team, and then forwarding your phone lines whenever you want our agents to answer calls on your behalf. You can turn your calls over to Absent Answer at the same time every evening when your office closes for the day, during holidays when the office is closed, during busy periods, or on demand. We’re there to answer whenever your business needs us.
Here’s how an answering service for physicians works:
1.
A Patient or Provider Calls
A caller dials your regular office phone number. This could be a patient trying to reach an on-call doctor with an emergency, a facility or provider calling in a consult, routine office calls, or any other type of call that your office may receive.
2.
We Answer
Instead of ringing your office line and going to voicemail, burdening your on-call physician directly, or sitting on hold while your office is busy handling other tasks, all calls made to your office are routed directly to our friendly call center agents, who immediately recognize that the call is for your practice and greets the caller accordingly.
3.
We Take Action
There’s no one-size-fits-all approach for handling physician calls, so our team is armed with your precise instructions and handles each call per your expectations. We can perform triage and route the call to your on-call physician or nursing staff if certain criteria are met, refer callers to dial 911 or call back during office hours, take a message for the office, or complete routine administrative tasks directly over the phone, such as providing general information or scheduling appointments.
Complete Telephone Answering Solutions for Physicians
In today’s 24/7, interconnected world, there aren’t many practice that wouldn’t benefit from extended business hours and improved communication. As a result, the application of our physician answering services are almost endless. From newly merged physician groups routing calls between facilities to family practices fielding after-hours patient calls for the on-call doctor, there are a multitude of ways that Absent Answer can help facilitate telephone communication for your office.
Our answering service solutions include:
- After Hours Physician Answering Service. Do you want calls to your practice answered live 24 hours a day? Do you wish your receptionist was available around-the-clock? We’ve got you covered. Our 24 hour answering service can deliver the call coverage you need, when you need it.
- Emergency On-call Answering Service. Our team can function as your front-line triage department, handling on-call requests and processing them per your procedures. We answer and screen calls, then follow precise instructions to dispatch the call to the appropriate personnel, like an on-call doctor or nurse practitioner. We can also ensure only the right calls get through, saving you unnecessary interruptions.
- Overflow Office Answering Service. Don’t leave patients hanging when your office experiences a spike in phone calls. Our Overflow answering services for doctors’ offices is a cost effective way to ensure you always have backup telephone coverage. When your phone lines are busy, excess calls overflow to our call center, where our agents answer in the name of your practice and handle calls as an extension of your office.
- Physician Appointment Scheduling Service. Give your patients the flexibility of scheduling or rescheduling appointments at their convenience. Our agents can access web-based systems and manage appointment needs on your behalf.
Physician practices and medical professionals who utilize our answering services include:
- Medical Practices Large & Small
- General Practitioners
- Specialists/Surgeons
- Home Health Care & Nursing Agencies
- Hospitalists
- Dentists
- And more!
Call Center Solutions Built for Your Practice
Each and every physician account we setup is designed to serve the specific needs of the doctors, their staff, and their patients. We can custom tailor your account so that it delivers the precise mix of call coverage and messaging services that you need. Our physician call taking services can even be setup so that they’re dynamic and change based on the situation or time of day.
Examples of call center services we deliver to physicians include:
- 24/7 Virtual Receptionists for Physicians. We enable you to improve patient care by ensuring there’s a live voice to take calls at all times. Routine requests can be automatically handled and scheduled without bothering on-call staff. Our answering service enables you to deliver prompt patient care while reducing the number of non-urgent requests reaching you after hours.
- On-call Paging and Call Patching. Even though your office is closed, patients may still encounter an urgent issue that requires immediate attention. Our on-call scheduling software enables doctors to define the exact contact procedures for their on-call personnel, which is then used by our agents whenever a call needs to be paged or relayed to the provider on-call. Urgent messages can be immediately text messaged, paged, emailed, or warm transferred to your on-call physician so that your patient concerns are addressed as quickly as possible.
- Automated Telephone Attendant. Many physician groups reduce their costs by 40% by using our specialized voicemail pre-screening service. Many doctors use our pre-screening service to inform patients of office hours or other information. The caller has the option of leaving a voicemail for the office or speaking with an agent in our call center.
Physician Answering Service Features
- Fully HIPAA compliant. Absent Answer’s physician answering service provides HIPAA-compliant encrypted messaging and call taking procedures to safeguard all personal health information.
- Call recording and reporting. All calls are recorded and time stamped, with detailed call reports made available so that you can track usage and maintain compliance.
- On-call scheduling software. If your your practice has rotating on-call doctors or specialized instructions based on the nature of the call, our specialized On-Call Scheduling software will ensure the correct person is contacted every time. When changes are made, they instantly update our system so that we reach the correct person.
- Smartphone integration. Our call center allows you to update on-call status, view directory information as well as send text messages. You can also let us know that you’ve received our messages with our ‘one button check-in’ feature.
- Secure message delivery. Information is securely delivered via SMS or email. Have information delivered to you the way you want it. We can utilize SMS text messaging delivered directly to your mobile device, encrypted email, direct phone call to your cell phone for urgent matters after hours, voicemail delivery, integrated messaging, or pager,
About Absent Answer
At Absent Answer, we’ve been answering calls for doctors since 1985. In fact, before we were Absent Answer, we were known as the Physician’s Answering Service.
Each and every call, message, order and appointment gets handled accurately – 100% of the time. That kind of reliability allows you to focus on managing your practice while we worry about handling your important calls and serving as your virtual medical receptionist. The personal touch that your callers feel is the same personal attention you can expect every day.
To your patients, we are a friendly, helpful extension of your team.
To your doctors and staff, Absent Answer is an accurate and reliable virtual assistant who knows you and your practice. We are your virtual assistants who never miss a call, take a day off, or call in sick.
The Absent Answer Difference
Why choose Absent Answer as the office answering service for your physician group?
Positive, Outgoing Staff
When we say we have the best personnel in the industry, we mean it. Our call center specialists have been with us an average of 8 years. The industry average is a mere 18 months. Some of our staff has been with us since the beginning.
We only hire positive, outgoing people to assist your patients, so you can have peace of mind knowing your calls will be handled in the most courteous and professional manner. Our extensive training program ensures that all of our employees are prepared to answer any question a caller may ask.
Highly Trained Virtual Receptionists
Absent Answer works closely with you to develop service benchmarks and create a consistent training program to ensure that all agents are fully trained to provide your physicians, nurses, office staff, and patients with exceptional service.
Superior Quality Standards & Reliability
Our clients consistently rate the quality of our service as good/excellent 97% of the time.
Our service quality is just one reason that successful physicians’ offices turn to Absent Answer to help them grow. Our call center has taken great care to make sure we have redundancy wherever possible in our operations. We realize that being available on a 24/7 basis for you requires us to have excellent up-time.
US-based Call Center
All our agents work and live in the USA. There is no offshore outsourcing.
FAQs
Can you answer patient calls the way I want you to?
Yes, we set up each account per your instructions so that we fully understand your requirements and train our agents on the correct procedures. We work as an extension of your office and can handle every patient situation accordingly.
Do you archive all messages taken after hours?
Yes. We keep a history of all your messages for 1 year. This also includes all voice-recorded conversations. All message storage systems are fully secure and HIPAA compliant.
Do my patients still call my office number after hours?
Yes, your patients call the same published business number after hours. The only difference is that you forward that line to us when you’re unavailable, and the calls reach our answering service personnel instead.
Related Healthcare Call Center Solutions
- Medical Answering Service
- Physicians Answering Service
- Secure Messaging Service (HIPAA Compliant)
- After Hours Medical Office Answering Service
- Mental Health Answering Service
- Hospitalist Answering Service
Get Started Today
Ready for a physician answering service to help support your office calls? We are ready to help. Contact our account team today to discuss your telephone answering needs and learn more about our affordable pricing plans.
