Doctors answering service can be broadly classified into two categories: traditional and modern. Traditional answering services are operator oriented. That means an operator takes the phone when a patient calls and enquires about the details. The operator records the details of the patient and the illness and conveys the message to the doctor. In the case of modern answering service, it is completely machine operated, with a software application controlling the procedure.
The following are some of the advantages modern doctors answering service has over their traditional counterparts.
No Hold Up Time
In the traditional system, sometimes a patient’s call will be attended immediately. However, on many occasions, all the operators may be busy on other calls, and the caller will have to wait for a long time. In thesecases, it defeats the whole purpose of the answering service.
In the modern system, the call will be answered usually within the first ring. The caller will neither hear any engaged tone nor experience hold up time.
Conveys Correct Information
A doctors answering service should register basically two important pieces of information. The first is the details of the patient and the disease. The second is the call back number – which is the number of the patient to which the doctor would call later.
In the traditional system, an operator records the information and conveys it to the doctor. There can be errors in the recorded information. The operator may miss one or two of the symptoms or may wrongly enter a digit of the call back number. One cannot entirely discount the possibility of human error and also cannot blame an operator for such mistakes.
One can avoid such mistakes only by switching to a modern answering service. In the modern system, the patient’s exact words are recorded electronically and the audio file is provided to the doctor. There is no chance of missing some information. The call back number too is recorded automatically, and hence, there is no chance of error in that aspect too.
Personalized Service
In the case of traditional systems, operators greet the patient. If the operator is a nonnative speaker or has a terrible accent, the callers may not be comfortable in communicating. A modern answering service allows a doctor to greet the callers with his or her own recorded voice. In a modern doctors answering service, it is also possible to greet the callers with a professionally recorded welcome note.
These are mainly the basic points of difference between traditional and modern doctor’s answering machine.
