Unconventional Answering Service and Call Management

Medical practices are resigned to using answering services that are expensive, prone to error, hard to reach, and sometimes, even unprofessional. Hardly surprising since most traditional answering services suffer from high operator turnover rates and overworked staff. Low automation in the industry also means your practice has to spend more time sending verbal and written communication and ensuring that your instructions are met.

In such an environment, practices are looking for:

• accurate call handling
• reliable and consistent service
• instantaneous and complete control over call management
• affordable cost structure

The MDCall system – a next-generation answering service that utilizes interactive voice response systems and integrated phone, internet, and paging services, to handle inbound calls gives you exactly that. Our clients, ranging from solo practices to medical groups with multiple doctors serving multiple facilities, can attest to the cost reduction and process improvement that your practice needs in a financially tight environment.

Why MDCall?

Meticulous Call Management

MDCall works with its clients to develop an exact call flow process based on their specific workflow and protocols. Once in place, each inbound call is stepped through the established process and outbound notification sent out based on physician preferences.

By accurately considering the origin and urgency of each call, MDCall determines which calls require a physician’s attention immediately and which can be queued for office staff for the following business day, based on your instructions. If the call is urgent, MDCall knows exactly where the physician is and how to contact him or her.

The call flow above is just a sample workflow – one of essentially a myriad ways a call flow can be developed.

Reliability

Conventional messaging suffers from a major flaw – there is no way to ensure that you are getting all your messages. MDCall, on the other hand, provides fail-safe notification.

Every outbound page is logged. If you don’t respond within a specified amount of time, MDCall will automatically follow your call escalation protocols. The system intensifies its efforts to reach you by re-paging you, trying an alternate contact device, and even calling alternate personnel, if required.

With such flexibility in notification management, you can rest assured that not only will your patients be protected but managing how you are reached – SMS, conventional pager, e-mail, or PDA – will be a breeze.

Protection from Liability

MDCall keeps a record of all incoming messages over a time period determined by the client. All outbound call logs are kept indefinitely. Thus, at any point, you may request information on a particular call or ask for monthly call reports. You can also archive your voice messages by downloading them from the MDCall server onto your hard drive.

Accuracy and Consistency

With MDCall, you never have to worry about sub-par call handling. MDCall picks up all inbound calls on the first ring and never places callers on hold. It walks callers through the call process you have determined in the same way every time. Based on your instructions, it always makes the right decision – never sending a routine call as an emergency, for example. And finally, every call is resolved correctly with proper delivery of messages and subsequent notification.

Easy Contact Management

With MDCall, doctors can easily manage their on-call schedules as well as how and when they want to be contacted independent of the rest of the practice. They can change their settings right over the phone or via the web and have them go into effect immediately. Some may want patients connected automatically to their cell phone; others may prefer to have callers leave messages with notification sent to their device of choice. In short, where traditional answering services have a hard time telling practices apart, MDCall can distinguish between individual practitioners and respond effectively.

Unified Messaging

MDCall exists to not only to act as an answering service but also to make practitioners’ already busy lives easier. The MDCall system can be configured to provide productivity features such as voicemail-by-email, web-based on-call schedule management, and mobile messaging. Practitioners can forward stored voicemails to one another or send a single message to a distribution list.

Affordability

Greater Value and Responsive Cost Structure. Your practice can start using MDCall with no initial upfront expenditures. We provide more services while charging you much less than traditional live operator answering services. Furthermore, with MDCall, you pay only for what you use. There are no high fixed monthly costs.

Professional Consultants Ready to Help. MDCall’s staff will help you throughout the process of migrating from your current answering service provider. They will help your practice develop a custom call flow process based on its communication requirements – the number of doctors to service, the on-call schedules to accommodate, the number of hospitals or clients you cover, and more. Our staff will help you think through the issues at hand and suggest solutions based on prior experience.