How to Connect with Physicians via Teleconferences during COVID
The COVID pandemic changed the way people dealt with their physicians. Now, patient connections occur more frequently through teleconferences. In addition, those who require an appointment are asked to use an app or reach their call center. The latter option has several benefits that make scheduling easier.
HIPAA Compliance
The fact that patient access call centers must follow HIPAA regulations is a security benefit. It means your personal health information, such as medical records, is protected. Call centers are forbidden to access these details during patient registration.
Representatives of these locations go through extensive training to understand HIPAA regulations. Not only is this done when they start at the call center, but it’s revisited on an annual basis. This ensures staff members are familiar with the latest updates.
Expanded Message Delivery
Call centers no longer rely on just phone calls for patient scheduling. Many of them now utilize communication via email or text messages. Once these messages are received and the doctor is paged, the center contacts the patient to ensure they were the one that made the call. Verification eases patient concerns about message delivery and response speed.
Separation of Provider Calls
Another benefit of a call center is the ability to reach individual providers in a large practice. In this scenario, there might be more than one physician on call at a time. Call center representatives have available technology to separate calls to avoid confusion.
Voicemail Options
On top of patient scheduling, call centers are used as pharmacy lines. Patients call voicemail and leave the information on the medications they require. Some providers work with the patient access call centers to create separate mailboxes for different requests. Through this, they can tell if a request is an emergency or can wait.
Pre-Qualification
What frustrates many individuals during patient registration is pre-qualification. This is a series of questions that request personal information, medical histories, and the reason you need an appointment. Today, part of this pre-qualification involves questions related to COVID exposure.
Call center representatives are trained to ask some of these questions. For instance, they can enter personal data that doesn’t fall under HIPAA regulations. In addition, they could send a link via text or email to the patient with the questions. Then, they have the power to complete these forms before their visit.
Needless to say, call centers offer many benefits that make patient scheduling easier. Through the use of modern technology, communication between individuals and providers is quicker and more efficient. As a result, patients are directed to the right physicians for accurate diagnoses.
There’s no time like the present to implement a call center for your practice. Especially since patients are still concerned about COVID variants. Reach out to our representatives at Answer Carolina for more information about our 24/7 call center.
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