Bad telephone service can put practice on hold

Practice Pointers. By Karen S. Schechter, AMNews contributor. Aug. 15, 2005.

PRACTICE POINTERS

Answers to questions about the business side of your practice

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Question: Recently I have been receiving complaints from my patients about our office's accessibility on the telephone and the way in which calls to the office are handled. I don't know if this is a staffing or an equipment issue. How can I identify the source of these complaints and rectify the situation?

Answer: The manner in which your telephones are managed has a major impact on the success of your practice. Effective telephone management addresses many patient complaints such as accessibility to doctors, ease in appointment scheduling and processing and returning calls.

The first task is to understand the demands on your system. How many published numbers and incoming and outgoing lines do you need to process your practice's volume of calls? First determine how many calls your office receives each day, the peak hours for incoming calls, and the number of calls lost because lines are busy.

If your telephone system is relatively new, you might be able to program it to generate usage reports. If not, you can obtain this information from your telephone company by asking it to conduct peak-load and busy-signal tests.

Once there is an understanding of the call volume and peak call times, develop and implement a plan to manage the incoming calls. Specific issues to address include the number of incoming and outgoing lines and how they are used.

For example, consider having different telephone numbers for calls from physicians and for certain services, such as billing, insurance processing and prescription refills. If there is a separate number for billing and insurance, include this information on patient statements and in the practice's brochure.