Can you imagine the healthcare industry without the benefit of scientific advancements? There’s a reason treatments like bloodletting are considered arcane—because through science and technology, professionals learned which practices treated patients and which, well, didn’t.
And yet, the way the healthcare industry communicates with itself and with patients remained relatively un-advanced for many, many years. The telephone was invented and that was the standard until email came along. But then, rather than being phased out in favor of modern communication technology, the traditional phone system stayed on desks in medical offices, private practices, and insurance companies; even as a lot of us ditched our landlines in favor of more advanced instruments.
Without a reliable, technologically advanced communication system, many of the strides in treatment could remain out of reach for some patients. This is especially true when you factor in the emergence of a pandemic that places a premium on all forms of communication other than the face-to-face variety. It’s true—the humble, unassuming piece of equipment known as a phone plays as crucial a role as ever in the healthcare industry.
VoIP Improves Patient Experience & Practice Operations
Like a state-of-the-art piece of equipment helps a professional make a more accurate diagnosis, a modern VoIP phone system in healthcare improves the experience of both patients and personnel. Improvements to communication systems simplify and streamline the day-to-day process, ensure that calls are efficiently answered and routed across multiple locations, and even make something as simple as waiting on hold more pleasant.
Healthcare Practice Management
It’s safe to say that there’s a lot of multitasking taking place in the healthcare industry. Service providers deal with thousands of calls every day, all while prescribing medication and simultaneously trying to understand an incoming patient’s problem. It’s an industry of life or death—held in check by productivity and efficiency.
VoIP is furnished with productivity-enhancing features that enable clinicians to avoid mistakes and give proper, equal attention to patients across all medical situations. The healthcare industry can remain connected to patients and staff members via a robust VoIP system—inbound calls are answered and forwarded, allowing tasks to be properly delegated and for patient concerns to be addressed. Most importantly, patients can be efficiently connected to doctors who can treat them as soon as possible. It all comes down to task management, a major concern for healthcare workers. VoIP delivers efficient processes that can ease daily operations and reduce the teetering pile of tasks to more manageable assignments.
Providing patients with exceptional care is a priority, even under strenuous conditions, and VoIP can elevate patient experience in hospital settings, smaller clinics, as well as in the insurance arena.
VoIP features for the healthcare industry include: Auto Attendant, a recorded greeting, that —promptly connects patients with the correct department; a Call Routing System that provides a helpful voice and an easily navigated menu for callers; and a VoIP-Integrated Billing System makes patient information available at a moment’s notice.
Another feature is Call Analysis, a built-in VoIP technology that provides users with the quantifiable data necessary to make important decisions regarding care offerings, administration, and finance. Meanwhile, Conference Management tools help healthcare professionals share information regarding patient care and industry developments.
It all ends with the Cost Savings inherent in a cloud-based VoIP communication system. With no physical equipment, the cloud-based system reveals the potential for call forwarding, easy call management, and other advanced features, all in an easy plug-and-play system that’s surprisingly affordable.
Digital Patient Experience
The healthcare industry operates in the world of customer service—sure, the stakes are high, but it’s still very much customer service. Providing patients with exceptional care is a priority, even under strenuous conditions, and VoIP can elevate patient experience in hospital settings, smaller clinics, as well as in the insurance arena.
Many of the VoIP features that increase efficiency for professionals also works to make patients more comfortable. But patient experience is further elevated by other features that are only achievable with a cloud-based VoIP system.
For starters, the Enhanced Audio Quality only made possible through VoIP ensures that pertinent patient information is quickly gathered and clearly understood—which is crucial for both emergency calls and more routine situations. Meanwhile, Call Queue Management can prioritize and arrange callers based on the importance of the call. And with VoIP, healthcare professionals can deploy Custom SMS Messaging throughout a given day so that patients remain well informed, appointments can be confirmed, and physicians are made more accessible in moments of need.
HIPAA Compliant Services
Security and patient privacy are vital components of any trusted healthcare provider. A VoIP system instituted by a healthcare provider should be strategically designed to ensure ongoing HIPAA compliance—for example, disabling call recording during patient interaction. Privacy should always be safeguarded, no matter if it’s a call taken in the office or a call transferred to a doctor on the road.
Takeaway
When examining the modern needs of the healthcare industry and the patients utilizing the services, communication should be fortified with the easily accessed tools available through a cloud-based VoIP phone system. The availability of features that have the potential to streamline the many intricacies of the industry make VoIP the ultimate prescription for healthy and fruitful conversation.
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