Medical Answering Service

Your partner in providing patient-centered, 24/7 premium and HIPAA compliant care

Secure, Reliable Medical Answering Service

Many medical offices and healthcare providers rely on a professional answering service in order to better serve their patients and make high-quality care more accessible. With a quality answering service, patients can reach the care and guidance they need without jumping through a bunch of hoops, being put on hold, or reaching voicemail.

If you’re wondering how an answering service can benefit your practice—and, by extension, whether it’s worth the modest investment—this article is going to take a deep dive into medical answering services. We’ll look at what answering services are, how they work, and how to find the best medical answering service for your practice.

Quality medical answering service providers are hard to find. And as a medical or healthcare professional, chances are you have a busy, thriving practice with phones ringing off the hook at all hours. While it’s nice to provide exceptional care to so many people, it can be difficult to keep up with such a high volume of patients and phone calls—and it’s just not possible for your office to be open 24/7/365.

That’s where we come in. At Answering Service Care, we provide on-call, after-hours answering services for medical offices and practices of all sizes. And when we say “on-call,” we mean it. 

Our virtual answering service operators for medical offices are available on nights, weekends, and holidays—and they’re all trained to handle all your telephone answering-related needs from simple patient calls to full-blown medical emergencies.

But when it comes to patient answering services, being professional is only the beginning. Our answering service for medical offices is personable and empathetic. They know what it means to talk to someone calling with a problem, or needing assistance with a question. They’re intelligent, friendly, articulate, and prepared to fulfill your specific phone and message requirements.

As one of the top medical office answering services in the field since 1974, we have over 45 years of experience doing what we do best. Through 2023, our systems have operated at 99.998% efficiency. For a busy medical professional, there is nothing like having the peace of mind that comes from working with a reliable service provider that values secure and always-on technology. As a vendor, we take technology systems, processes, and uptime as seriously as we do the medical office answering service agent experience that we provide.

Pediatric doctor doing a checkup on a baby sitting in her mother's lap

What Is an Answering Service?

The term answering service refers to a specialized, third-party service an organization or company uses for anything from providing basic information to redirecting calls, scheduling appointments, and answering callers’ questions.

How Does a Medical Answering Service Work?

A medical answering service provides a medical office or healthcare facility with the tools, technology, and personnel needed to provide high-quality phone services to patients and other callers. Here’s a run-down of how it works.

Let’s say Sally D. needs an appointment with her doctor, who has been helping her manage a chronic health condition. She already has a follow-up scheduled, but she is experiencing some new symptoms and wants to be seen by the doctor sooner than her existing appointment. So she decides to call into the office, and is pleasantly surprised to be greeted by a human (as opposed to an impersonal, pre-recorded message). 

She explains her new symptoms and asks about moving up the date of her scheduled follow-up appointment. The answering service employee asks questions, takes notes, and checks the doctor’s schedule. Once they return to the line, they provide her with a few dates and times to choose from. She picks one, and the new appointment is scheduled. 

From start to finish, Sally was able to reschedule her follow-up appointment over the course of just a few minutes thanks to the knowledgeable and professional help she received.

Now, you might be wondering, “What about after hours answering services for medical offices?” Obviously, patients’ health questions and concerns don’t just occur during business hours. That’s why medical answering service companies like Answering Service Care provide an accessible, 24 hour medical answering service for offices and healthcare facilities. Whether a patient calls at 3:00 a.m. or p.m., they can receive the same reliable, patient-centered service they expect.

While you will certainly feel the benefits of partnering with our physician answering services, your patients will feel rewarded as well. After all, if your patient is calling your medical practice, it is likely because something is wrong. This doesn’t mean that every call is an emergency, but there is some sort of concern at play.

Some calls might simply be to schedule an appointment down the road. Other calls might be to ask a question about a medical bill. Other calls might be personal, and a patient wants to speak only with a doctor. Regardless of the point of the call, our medical answering services will address each individually and accordingly.

It is no secret that patients want to feel like they are taken care of. This is true whether their situation is serious or merely routine. They want to be heard and make sure their needs are being taken care of. With a medical office answering service in place, you can rest assured your patients will be satisfied.

This is especially true for after-hours calls. You can’t be expected to be answering the phone at all hours. We understand that a work-life balance is important. And there are certainly times when your patients are calling and you are not available.

But these calls shouldn’t be missed. And with an on-call after-hours answering service for your medical practice, they won’t be.

Happy patients mean return business. Additionally, it is likely that your patients will refer your practice to their friends and family. Simply put, if your patients feel like they are being taken care of, they will boast about their experience. This can only mean good things for your medical practice.

How Does an Answering Service Assist the Medical Office?

There are several benefits to choosing a professional, specialized medical answering service over a simple answering machine or voicemail service, including:

  • Accessibility | When a patient has a question or concern, they need easy access to their medical providers. Quality medical answering service companies provide dependable 24/7 coverage, meaning help is always just a call away. Providers ASC make patients feel like the most important part of your practice—with minimal, if any, wait times. 
  • Versatility | People often mistake professional answering services for glorified answering machines or basic receptionists. But a medical answering service serves more as an extension of your practice, ready and willing to handle a wide range of inquiries, from scheduling appointments to providing important information and resources to address patients’ questions.
  • Efficiency | A medical answering service makes sure patients’ calls are answered promptly and efficiently by someone who can help them. Outsourcing these tasks also frees up valuable time for your employees to focus on other critical aspects of their job—like providing patients with in-person (or telemedicine) care. 
  • Cost Savings | There are several different ways in which a medical answering service can cut costs for a medical office or healthcare facility. For example, the average medical receptionist salary is around $40,000. And that cost only grows when you consider the time and resources required to onboard, train, and develop them. With a medical answering service like Answering Service Care, expenses are both reduced and streamlined, which helps with managing the budget. With Answering Service Care, you can leverage our services for low monthly rates, including pay-as-you-go options. Visit our website to learn more about our current plans and pricing.
  • Improved Patient Experience | When patients call into a medical office, their expectations aren’t so different from any other company they contact. They expect their call to be answered, promptly and by a friendly human being. They expect the person who answers their call to be knowledgeable and ready to listen. And they expect their requests to be handled with professionalism and courtesy. These all happen to be specialities of the best medical answering service companies, like Answering Service Care.
  • Professionalism | Serving as an extension of your practice, the agents who work for medical answering service companies are trained professionals. These agents often undergo industry-specific training, so they can provide a consistently high level of sophistication and courtesy when handling incoming calls and patient inquiries. In addition to medical answering services, ASC also provides services tailored to a wide range of additional, specialized industries—including real estate, finance, insurance, and more. Because of ASC’s versatility in many industries, you can be sure you’re receiving the professional and specialized care that is important for your clients.
  • HIPAA Compliance | One of the qualities that makes medical answering services unique is the need to comply with industry regulations and requirements, such as HIPAA. When patients call into your practice, privacy is not only an expectation but a legal requirement. Working with a medical answering service ensures that your practice can retain patients’ trust by maintaining compliance with all HIPAA and related regulations that affect the healthcare industry.

There is no question that a medical answering service will lighten the workload of your employees, making your operation more efficient. After all, if someone is constantly having to answer the phone, it takes away from their regular responsibilities. Inbound calls happen, and high call volume is ordinarily a good thing. However, if it is getting in the way of people doing their jobs, then it is time for a medical answering service.

When your employees are working, they should be completely invested in their jobs. If someone has to run and answer the phone every time it rings it is breaking focus and hurting productivity. With a physician answering service, this doesn’t have to be the case. Your employees can stay focused, your patients can have their calls answered, and efficiency can be improved overall.

Are There Any Disadvantages of Using a Medical Answering Service?

There are no real disadvantages to using a medical answering service—as long as you choose the right one. With that in mind, then, let’s explore how to choose the right answering service for your medical office.

Answering Service

How Do I Choose an Answering Service as a Medical Provider?

Choosing the right professional call answering service is an important consideration, but not overly complicated. It ultimately comes down to finding the features you need, from a company you can trust, at a price point you can afford. Here are 6 important things to consider:

  • Reputation and Experience | There’s nothing inherently risky about working with a newer company, but working with a company that’s been in the business for a long time—with plenty of happy customers—can provide an extra level of trust. After all, a medical answering service acts as an extension of your practice, meaning experience and expertise are crucial. Answering Service Care has been in the business for over 50 years, offering services tailored to the medical industry (among others). For more information, check out some of our customer reviews and personal testimonials
  • Trained Personnel | If you’re looking for a professional medical answering service you can trust, look for one that prioritizes giving their employees specialized training tailored specifically to the medical/healthcare industry. That way, they’ll be well-equipped not just to answer phone calls, but to help patients find answers, resources, or services they need—both efficiently and effectively.
  • Availability and Accessibility | Medical crises don’t just occur during regular office hours. It’s especially important for providers to choose an answering service that they can count on for 24/7/365 service—like Answering Service Care.
  • Pricing and Contract Terms | In addition to seeking out a professional answering service with reasonable pricing, it’s also important to find a service that is willing to guarantee the availability and overall quality of their services. What happens if their systems go down, for example? Every patient—and every inquiry—matters, so Answering Service Care offers a 21-day money back guarantee and no long-term contracts for our professional services.
  • Bilingual Agents | Would it surprise you to learn that 13% of the U.S. population speaks Spanish in their homes? What about the fact that the United States has the second-largest Spanish-speaking population in the world (second only to Mexico)? These are the facts according to Forbes, and they underscore the importance of making medical services accessible to all patients—regardless of their native or preferred language. ASC offers bilingual medical answering services, so speaking English doesn’t have to be a barrier to receiving vital information and care.
  • Versatility and Automated Features | While the whole point of a medical answering service is to ensure that patients are greeted by—and helped by—real, knowledgeable humans, that doesn’t mean there aren’t opportunities for increased efficiency through automated features. These often involve integrating their services by connecting them to the applications you’re already using to manage appointments, patient data, and more. Answering Service Care offers over 5,000 integrations, making it among the most versatile and efficient medical answering services out there.
Answering Service

Leading The Way In 24/7 Medical Answering Services

As an industry leader for over four decades, we know that reliable telephone answering support plays a pivotal role in your ability to provide better care and improve patient outcomes. That’s why we do what we do. To help you better serve your community. Here’s a quick overview of what makes us one of the best 24-hour medical answering services you can find:

HIPAA Compliant

We’re fully compliant with HIPAA, giving you—and your patients—peace of mind.

Secure Messaging

Receive your messages securely and in compliance with HIPAA laws.

Appointment Scheduling

Never miss an appointment – or an opportunity for an appointment.

Interactive Voice Response (IVR)

We make sure you never miss a call and your patients don’t miss you.

How Much Does an Answering Service Cost per Month?

Answering Service Care offers several different medical answering service plans, starting at just $25/month (at the time this article was published). Visit our medical answering service pricing page to learn about the current rates for our plans, which include:

  • The Starter Plan for $25/month, plus minutes
  • The Small Business Plan for $169/month, plus minutes (100 minutes included)
  • The Pro Plan for $289/month, plus minutes (250 minutes included)
  • The Enterprise Plan for $599/month, plus minutes (500 minutes included)

The best way to put these costs into perspective is to compare them with the average salary of a medical office receptionist or similar professional. According to Salary.com, the average salary “typically falls between $35,706 and $42,674.” What’s more, that doesn’t account for related costs—such as those associated with recruiting, onboarding, and training one or more new employees, or the cost of benefit plans and other expenses. 

Of course, our team at Answering Service Care will also work with you to create a customized plan to ensure that our services will meet your needs and help you provide the highest level of professional service to your patients. Curious what this might look like for your practice? Learn more here.

We don’t have to tell you how critically important it is to treat patients* with dignity and respect. Our live medical office answering service team members are alert, empathetic, and dedicated to giving your patients the attention they both expect and deserve. Every individual medical office answering service agent is trained, skilled, and experienced in the subtle art of patient communication.

*Answering Service Care doesn’t provide services to patients. We provide live answering services to healthcare professionals and medical practices.
A medical professional answering a phone call
Answering Service For Telemedicine

Medical Office Virtual Answering Service For Telemedicine

The pandemic has transformed the way many businesses operate, and medical offices are no exception. Many of our medical clients have switched to telemedicine, supporting their patients virtually on a short-term or long-term basis. As we all adapt to a new normal, there’s no denying that telemedicine has a significant role to play in keeping up with routine needs and follow-ups—and it is becoming clear that telemedicine is here to stay.

When you treat patients by phone or video, the format of your appointments may be different and your reliance on technology increases exponentially. If your office staff is working remotely or has had to self-quarantine due to COVID-19 exposure, don’t leave your phones to chance.

Now more than ever, people are hungry for connection, and callers are eager to hear a human voice at the other end of the line. Whether they are calling with an urgent medical concern, or to find out the social distancing requirements at your office, a friendly and professional voice goes a long way.

With both patients and practitioners adopting telehealth to some degree, we are pleased to provide a professional, HIPAA-compliant telemedicine answering service to our clients in the medical field.

What Is the Best Answering Service for Medical Offices?

Over the course of this article, we’ve provided the blueprint for the perfect medical answering service, so you can find the best answering service for your practice. It’s one that offers accessibility, versatility, efficiency, cost savings, an improved patient experience, professionalism, and HIPAA compliance. And you should prioritize working with an answering service company you can trust—one with experience and expertise, highly trained personnel, and a willingness to understand your needs and tailor your services accordingly. 

Answering Service Care checks all of these boxes—and more.

At Answering Service Care, we provide a comprehensive and customizable answering service for your medical office or facility. Get started today with the perfect plan and never miss a call again.

As a fully compliant HIPAA “business associate,” we understand the importance of patient privacy, and we’re committed to full compliance so that we can best protect and serve you and your patients. Our medical patient answering service is dedicated to providing top customer service while also maintaining privacy and patient security standards for each of your patients. Read more about HIPAA and our secure messaging medical office virtual assistant service.

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