AnswerNow, Inc.—a leading provider of call center solutions, answering services and customer support—recently published a white paper titled, “Live Answering’s Positive Impact on Customer Service.” This document illustrates the importance of using live answering services to provide callers with immediate attention and efficient service.

Some companies try to save money by using automated answering systems or having customers leave messages on a voicemail system, but this can have a major negative impact on the customer experience. As these companies often discover the hard way, cutting corners when it comes to customer service usually ends up hurting you in the long run.

Why Companies Use Automated Systems

For companies that try to get by using an automated system, the motivating factor usually boils down to one thing: money. These businesses like the idea of the savings they can realize by not paying for people to staff their phone lines.

But this is a case where trying to save a little bit of money upfront can result in considerable lost revenue down the line. While it’s true that automated systems can be cheaper than the live answering alternatives, the negative impact on the customer experience can lead to decreased profits and lower customer satisfaction—both of which can be bad for business.

How Customers Feel

It’s probably no surprise that customers generally prefer dealing with a live person instead of an automated system or voicemail. People generally have a less favorable feeling about companies that force them to have interactions with automated systems. Research shows that most customers would be willing to pay more in order to get better customer service.

The Cost of Annoyed Customers

These days, customers expect the best service—and don’t have a lot of patience for companies that don’t provide it. If a customer gets the runaround or can’t reach someone who can help them right away, they will quickly grow frustrated and may take their business elsewhere. The cost of customer abandonment can be huge, since it is much more expensive to try and get new customers than it is to keep customers you already have. In fact, research shows that it can be up to seven times more costly to replace a customer than it is to retain an existing one.

Why Live Answering is So Important

Customers expect good service, and they also want to be able to get the answers or assistance they need quickly. While automated systems may be able to provide answers to basic inquiries, more complicated or unusual issues will usually require the help of a live person. The longer someone must wait for an answer, the more frustrated they will become. Worse, this delay will give this unhappy customer time to consider other options—including possibly going with one of your competitors instead. Having a live agent available to answer a question quickly will go a long way in improving the customer experience and will also reduce the risk of customer abandonment.

AnswerNow’s white paper explores this issue in greater detail, discussing the pros and cons of using an automated system and explaining the benefits a business can realize by providing live answering services for their customers.

To download the white paper, visit http://www.answernowinc.com/landing/live-answering-vs-automated.php

About AnswerNow Founded over three decades ago, AnswerNow! provides call center solutions to hundreds of businesses across a multitude of industries.  The U.S.-based company offers answering services, bilingual inbound and outbound call management, customer service and support, marketing and sales contact management, 24/7 service, appointment scheduling, overflow and disaster recovery.  For more information, visit the company's website at http://www.AnswerNowInc.com

Recent updates to the Health Insurance Portability & Accountability Act of 1996 (known as HIPAA) drastically strengthen privacy and security of Protected Health Information (PHI).  PHI includes information relating to medical conditions, treatments, payments made for care, and anything else about a patient’s healthcare.

To sort out some of the major issues impacting medical answering services, AnswerNow authored a white paper titled “How New HIPAA Regulations Impact Medical Answering Services.”  This document discusses what the new updates are, why they’re so critical, how healthcare answering services need to respond and how outsourcing can help ensure compliance. 

In addition, the white paper explains what medical call center providers need to do about electronic messaging of PHI.  Specifically, we clarify how healthcare providers and their call center solutions can manage text messaging and email, as well as other measures they can take to protect transmission of PHI.

What are the Latest Changes to HIPAA?

Healthcare providers and their call center solution providers can no longer send any patient related information through unsecured or unencrypted channels.  This means no texts or emails containing PHI can reside on unprotected networks, including those of mobile phone service carriers.  Given the proliferation of digital messaging throughout all organizations, the new rules have profound implications for how PHI can be disseminated.

How can Healthcare Answering Services Comply?

Compliance means transmitting PHI through secure web portals, over telephone calls or through secure digital messaging applications.  To protect the privacy of patients, medical answering services need to beef up security when transmitting electronic messages with PHI.

Text messages with patient information must be encrypted.  They cannot be stored on a cell phone carrier’s network unless secure servers are guaranteed.  Selected messaging applications offer HIPAA compliance with several security features, including full point-to-point encryption and password protection. 

Email messaging with PHI requires secure network connections to comply with HIPAA.  A secure website can allow healthcare providers to view encrypted messages through a protected portal.

Another measure to help ensure HIPAA compliance involves establishing Transport Layer Security (TLS) connections between healthcare providers and their medical answering services. TLS is a data encryption protocol that guarantees privacy and data integrity between client/server applications communicating over the Internet.

Can Outsourcing Help with HIPAA Compliance?

Experienced medical answering services will know all the ins and outs of the latest HIPAA updates.  HIPAA is extremely complicated and it’s easy to unintentionally violate a regulation.  By outsourcing to a well qualified provider, healthcare organizations have access to proven processes, applications and technologies to ensure compliance.

Today’s healthcare environment remains challenging.  HIPAA compliance requires significant in-house expertise, tools, technology and staffing – all which require additional budget.  Outsourcing medical answering services can be done affordably and successfully so HIPAA compliance isn’t an issue.

To learn more about outsourcing and HIPAA compliance, download our latest white paper titled “How New HIPAA Regulations Impact Medical Answering Services” today.  This document provides detailed, important information on how healthcare organizations and their medical call center providers can comply fully with the new regulations.

Working with AnswerNow

AnswerNowMD, AnswerNow's dedicated healthcare team, works exclusively with medical providers, hospitals, healthcare facilities and other businesses in the healthcare field. Our team ensures the clients and patients of our healthcare customers receive excellent care and attention when they call.

In addition, we understand our healthcare clients can’t risk using an answering service that could compromise patient privacy or allow unauthorized access to medical records.  Therefore, we communicate securely with clients using our secured web portal, phone lines and/or messaging application.

If you want to learn more about our HIPAA compliant text messaging and how AnswerNowMD solutions can improve patient communication, call 1-866-506-5663 for a custom quote or visit our website.  

Businesses choose to use a Phoenix Answering Service for many reasons, the biggest of which is cutting costs.  You can reduce your overhead and at the same time provide consistent, quality service to your customers around-the-clock.  And you can do this for less than what it would cost to hire full-time receptionists or reps. 

But the cost savings go far beyond employee salaries.  An answering service helps you save money in seven major areas:

1.  Sick Time, Vacations, Breaks

When your employees aren’t on the job, they’re costing you money.  Just run the numbers and you’ll see how much:

Say you pay a 40-hour per week representative $1,000 biweekly.  If you provide a two-week paid vacation each year, three paid sick days and two, fifteen-minute paid breaks each day, you’re looking at lost productivity costs of $2,838.70 per employee.  This figure doesn’t factor in the cost of having other workers cover for the rep while he or she is away.

It’s not difficult to see how these costs will add up to staggering numbers over time.  But, if you shift staffing responsibilities to a Phoenix answering service, fretting over paid sick time, vacations and breaks becomes a thing of the past.  Your answering service will always be there for your callers 24/7 – and cost you one low fee day-in and day-out.

2.  Tardiness, Absenteeism

Nothing can be more frustrating than having to deal with an employee who’s habitually tardy or absent.  You’re not only incurring a cost for the rep’s time away from the job, but you have to invest your time and energy into disciplining.  Couple that with the stress that you’re going to have to re-staff the position soon and you’ve got a mess.

Any time your employees are unproductive, you lose money.  However, you don’t have to deal with these headaches and spiraling costs.  Answering services will always be there for you – on time every day.

3.  Turnover

Receptionist and representative positions typically experience higher turnover.  Either you have to fire employees for excessive tardiness and/or absenteeism, or they quit to pursue another opportunity.  In both cases, you’re incurring another round of hiring costs, plus the aggravation of advertising for replacements, screening and interviewing candidates and training new hires. 

And if you’re terminating an employee, you have to really cover your bases.  Today’s ultra-litigious society means you have to be especially careful to avoid a potential lawsuit.

Why bother with what will undoubtedly be an ongoing staffing issue?  A professional answering service eliminates the hassles and high costs of turnover.

4.  Training

Even if you hire a star performer, you still need to train him or her.  And, of course, training will cost you.  In many cases, new reps will require training lasting two weeks to a month or more, depending on the company and current state of training materials.  Plus, don’t forget the ongoing interruptions from the new hire’s questions.

During the course of the new hire’s training, you may also realize he or she requires special equipment to perform the job, like en ergonomic chair and keyboard.  So, add those costs into the mix.  When you transfer responsibilities to an answering service, these costs and frustrations vanish.

5.  Management

Bringing a new employee up to speed takes time and effort.  One day, the new hire will be fully trained (hopefully).  In the meantime, your time commitment for being the new employee’s go-to person could cost you more than 30 minutes a day.

Even if the required training time diminishes eventually, you still need to manage the person.  Managing ongoing workloads, priorities, evaluations, more training, etc. will zap your time and energy.  

A professional answering service can make this all go away.  With experienced reps and managers on staff, they already know what needs to be done and how best to do it.  So, after a day or two of indoctrination, you don’t have to manage them.

6.  Facilities

Running an in-house call center operation requires a huge investment in facilities alone.  You not only need the appropriate office space with all its related costs, but you have to pay the equipment and technology expenses for each employee.  These costs include desks, chairs, computers, Internet connections, phones, special needs equipment and more.

Then, add-in all the maintenance costs for the facility and equipment.  You’ll also have to upgrade periodically, so you’ll incur additional costs there.  Plus, you need adequate security and insurance.

As you can see, managing facilities requires a huge investment that you can avoid by working with a Phoenix answering service.  A professional service already has the latest and greatest in facilities, equipment, technology and more. 

7.  Poor Customer Service

This is a biggie.  When your reps don’t serve your customers in the best manner possible, you risk losing business.  It may not even be their fault.  If you don’t have adequate staffing resources to answer all the calls that come in at the same time, your callers will become frustrated.  One study shows many people hang up after holding for only 40 seconds!

So, even if you have the best darn reps available, they can only answer one call at a time.  The more your callers have to wait, the greater you risk losing them.  Customers expect primo service each and every time they call.

With a professional answering service, you won’t miss calls – period.  You’ll have adequate staffing to respond to every call and experienced reps to provide the best level of customer service day or night.

In-House Reps vs. Phoenix Answering Service

Now that you’ve seen what staffing your own reps will really cost you, how does it compare to an answering service investment?  Many companies are shocked to learn how much money they can save.

In many cases, the cost of hiring a top-notch answering service will be less than half the cost of hiring just one, full-time rep.  Typically, you pay a low rate only for the calls being answered 24/7.  No more paying employee salaries and benefits.  No more paying for unproductive employees.  No more paying for facilities.

With an answering service, you avoid the hard costs that can stifle your business.  But you also eliminate the opportunity costs associated with staffing in-house reps.  By using an answering service, you’ll have additional time and budget available to pursue more strategic projects.  And can you imagine the profound impact these projects could have on your business?

Working with AnswerNow

Certainly cost and productivity advantages make using a call center a smart choice for most businesses. For these results to be achieved, you must select the right call center services provider.

By partnering with AnswerNow, the company’s clients were able to improve performance considerably, including adding more revenue and boosting productivity.  AnswerNow offers:

• A highly qualified, trained staff
• A team committed to your company and growing with you
• Bilingual capabilities
• Real-time accessibility to serve customers, clients or patients 24/7/365
• Advanced technologies to support your call center functions
• Proven quality assurance programs, monitoring and reporting

Once you determine your call center provider has the capabilities and services you require, you can focus on developing a true partnership.  The call center should be an extension of your in-house operation that delivers a top-notch first impression!

To calculate the costs to outsource your call center, visit AnswerNow’s website.  In addition to the call center services calculator, you’ll also find an abundance of other tools and resources readily available.

Recent updates to the Health Insurance Portability & Accountability Act of 1996 (known as HIPAA) will have a profound effect on medical answering services.  This update made major changes to strengthening privacy and security of Protected Health Information (PHI).  All healthcare organizations, including their call center service providers, must take extra measures to prevent security breaches.  The changes also clarify notification requirements indicating when breaches of unsecured health information must be reported.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released the new rule, called the Omnibus Final Rule or Final Rule, on January 25, 2013 with an effective date of March 26, 2013.  HHS required all healthcare providers to be compliant by September 23, 2013.

What the New HIPAA Rule Says

In an expanding digital environment, the update provides the public with increased protection and control of PHI.  The HIPAA Privacy and Security Rules originally focused on health care providers, health plans and other entities that manage PHI.  However, the recent rule changes expand security requirements to business associates of these healthcare organizations. Business associates include any contractor, subcontractor or vendor that receives PHI.

Many experts in the healthcare field have called the new rule the most sweeping change to HIPAA Privacy and Security Rules ever implemented.  The update not only enhances patient privacy rights and protections, but also bolsters the government’s ability to enforce regulations, even with business associates.

Under the rule, HIPAA expands the definition of “business associate” and requires healthcare organizations to enter into privacy and security agreements with these organizations and their subcontractors.

To understand the new rule, it’s important to define PHI.  HHS describes PHI as individually identifiable health information that can be linked to a specific person.  This information involves:

• A person’s past, present or future physical or mental condition
• The health care provided to an individual
• Past, present or future payments for a person’s health care

The new rule applies to individual identifiable health information in electronic form.  The confidentiality, integrity and availability of electronic protected health information (ePHI) must be secured when it is stored, maintained or transmitted.

When it comes to medical answering services complying with the new HIPAA regulations, any transmission of messages containing PHI cannot be sent.  Call center service providers, like AnswerNow, will no longer be able to send these messages via email, text or fax.  HIPAA considers these methods unsecured.  The only ways healthcare organizations can receive such messages are to retrieve them via a secured web portal, over a telephone call or via a secure messaging application.

New HIPAA Regulation’s Significant Impact on Text and eMail Messaging

Few businesses can operate without the use of text and email messaging.  Healthcare organizations are no exception.  The popularity of digital messaging has exploded in recent years as text messaging replaced antiquated pagers used in healthcare operations.

But, is electronic messaging compliant with the HIPAA updates?  According to the new rules, it’s not.  Emails and text messages do not comply. 

Compliance revolves around who can be considered a business associate of the healthcare provider.  Because the new rules expand the definition to any vendor, contractor or subcontractor with access to PHI, a wireless carrier must now comply.  Major mobile phone providers store texts and other sensitive customer data on their servers.

According to a report by the U.S. Department of Justice, U.S. telecom companies, including AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon, save information including cell tower history, text message detail, text message content, IP session information, IP destination information, call detail records, post-paid bill copies and more. 

For example, all four of the big mobile providers keep lists of everyone a caller exchanges text messages with – Verizon for one year, T-Mobile for up to five years, Sprint for 18 months and AT&T for seven years.  Reportedly, Verizon also retains the actual content of text messages for five days.  T-Mobile, AT&T and Sprint don’t store content at all.

HIPAA requires wireless carriers to comply with the following for processing and storing of a patient’s PHI:

• Secure servers
• Controlled access to the servers
• Controlled access to server rooms
• Security training at least twice a year
• A Business Associate Agreement with the carrier
• A Business Associate Agreement with any outside vendors who work with the carrier’s network infrastructure, including switches, servers and software

The Consequences of Non-Compliance

Non-compliance penalties are based on the level of negligence with a maximum penalty of $1.5 million per violation in a calendar year.  And, some of the largest breaches reported to HHS in the past involve business associates. 

A few examples of large enforcement actions brought against healthcare organizations for past HIPAA violations include:

• CVS Caremark Co, $2.25 million, February 2009
• Blue Cross Blue Shield of Tennessee, $1.5 million, March 13, 2012
• Rite Aid, $1 million, July 2010
• Massachusetts General Hospital, $1 million, February 2011
• University of California at Los Angeles Health System, $865,500, July 2011
• Cignet Health, $4.3 million civil money penalty (the largest fine for such violations), February 2011

Any HIPAA violation could end up costing a provider big money.  So, healthcare organizations need to take HIPAA rules seriously and do everything possible to comply.  Because the regulations can be complex, it’s easy for healthcare providers to unintentionally violate them.  And, under-staffing can lead to some rules being overlooked.

To ensure compliance, HHS conducts audits of healthcare facilities.  If audited, organizations must show where their PHI is located and how it’s transmitted from one place to another.

How to Best Comply with New HIPAA Regulations

Healthcare organizations must develop a compliance plan for HIPAA’s Privacy and Security rules.  High-level action items should include:

• Conducting an in-depth internal audit of the organization to determine possible non-compliance areas. Assign a person or team to do a gap analysis between current practices and the new requirements.
• Creating a government audit plan, including pertinent documentation, so the organization can quickly provide information when requested.
• Supporting more compliance training and ongoing awareness. Include how to manage PHI transaction disclosures.
• Establishing more oversight of business associates. Ensure they fully understand the new requirements and can demonstrate their compliance activities.
• Developing a breach-response plan.
• Monitoring compliance and security risks on an ongoing basis to quickly identify problem areas.

The new regulations specifically require changes to text and email communications.  As discussed earlier, a wireless carrier is considered a business associate and must comply with the HIPAA updates.  To ensure compliance, healthcare organizations must have their carriers:

• Sign and return a Business Associate Agreement
• Provide proper HIPAA training to all of their employees and subcontractors
• Confirm their entire infrastructure, including switches, servers and data circuits, are secure and compliant

Because of these overwhelming and risk-laden steps, healthcare organizations need to not use a wireless carrier to communicate PHI.  There are better ways.

Using a HIPAA-compliant medical answering service eliminates having the wireless carrier transmit PHI.  Then, the carrier isn’t considered a business associate and HIPAA compliance becomes a non-issue.

Instead, an experienced medical answering service ensures all communications including sensitive PHI will be done in a secure manner and are compliant with all regulations.  Proven medical call centers understand exactly what is needed to comply with the new HIPAA laws.

What should healthcare organizations look for to ensure a medical answering service transmits PHI securely?  A good candidate has a thorough understanding of all HIPAA regulations, including this latest update.  A candidate must be able to demonstrate compliance activities and have a clean track record. 

But, most of all, a medical answering service needs to implement secure and integrated messaging applications.  These applications must use the same security technology that protects financial transactions on major websites.  Built-in SSL, or Secure Socket Layer, technology allows encryption, decryption and sender/receiver authentication. 

This messaging capability allows secure messages using a Wi-Fi or wireless Internet connection.  It functions the same as traditional text messaging, but in a more secure and completely HIPAA-compliant way.

First impressions have the power to make or break sales opportunities in service-oriented organizations.  With an excellent interaction, customers are more likely to make an initial purchase, become a loyal customer and refer a business’ solutions to others.  A bad experience, on the other hand, drives customers to the competition.

Given the huge impact on a company’s success, AnswerNow outlined how to boost customer service in its latest white paper titled “5 Most Important Steps to Improving Customer Service.”  The document provides industry research highlighting the enormous costs of bad service, along with the dependable tactics you can use to ensure your business doesn’t miss the boat when it comes to making good on customer expectations.

The Impact of Lost Customers

A company’s call center is the major player in service delivery.  It has the power to develop and maintain favorable customer impressions for the company and its solutions.  Conversely, just one bad service encounter can cause a hit to your bottom line.  For example, it costs far more to replace customers than it does to retain them.  According to findings reported in a Parature Customer Service blog, poor service encounters cost U.S. companies approximately $83 billion each year!

Tried-and-True Tactics for Stellar Customer Service

Fortunately, businesses have several ways to elevate service levels.  The top five things you should do to improve customer service and protect your financial well being include:

1. Establish a solid “front line” for your business.
You don’t want to water-down the efforts of your support teams.  So, consider transferring front-line duties to a call center provider.  Then, you don’t have to risk escalating costs and plummeting profitability because you don’t have adequate resources to serve your customers.  

2. Lower your customer service wait times to a bare minimum. 
Nobody likes to waste time on hold for service.  If your customers are waiting long periods, you’re causing their frustration to build and increasing the odds the encounter will be less than positive.  To ensure interactions have the best opportunity to get off on the right foot, you can outsource customer service to an experienced call center with the expertise and technology to answer calls within seconds.

3. Utilize contact services centers to assist with call volume during peak periods.
If your call volume fluctuates, you must address service levels during peak calling hours.  Otherwise, the bottleneck created from backed-up calls can turn into a service nightmare.  Investing in additional customer service personnel is an expensive option.  Why hire additional service reps when you really only need additional staffing during certain times?  Instead, you can maintain service levels and keep costs down by relying on an outsourced call center to handle the overload.

4. Provide live chat support. 
In today’s online world, customers expect services such as live chat.  A chat application is an economical way to raise service levels and reduce costs.  It’s much cheaper to “talk” with a customer online than it is to participate in a phone conversation.  And for those customers who don’t want to waste time on the phone, chat is a perfect solution for addressing their needs. 

5. Create a company-wide culture around customer service. 
A customer-centric organization lives and breathes service.  The customer service culture is highly valued and engrained throughout the organization, from top to bottom.  And when the company’s leaders set the right example, the rest of the organization follows suit.

You need your existing customers to help your business grow and prosper.  Therefore, make sure you do everything to support them at the highest levels so you can count on long-term relationships and positive word-of-mouth.  Every company should set a goal to deliver “WOW” customer service in each encounter.  By doing so, you’ll build stronger brand loyalty, create deeper customer engagements and be on target to achieve your overall business goals. 

Working with AnswerNow

By partnering with AnswerNow, companies ensure a results-driven first impression on each and every customer interaction.  Businesses of all sizes and types leverage AnswerNow’s real-time accessibility and highly trained team members.  Our focus remains on reducing costs and contributing to profitable growth.  Companies can expect a WOW customer experience and measurable returns in our contact call centers.  

AnswerNow solutions offer:

• A multi-touch contact center with bilingual engagement 24/7/365
• Full service staffing and training
• Quality assurance and recorded interactions
• Immediate data access that leads to actionable information
• Sophisticated reporting to identify trending and alerts 
• Customizable applications for all service types and levels 
• Personalized service and dedicated account management 
• Demand forecasting and overflow 
• A branded extension of a company’s in-house team 

To learn more about how you can create the WOW! experience for your customers, download our latest white paper or call 1-800-226-0491.

In today’s value-based care environment, few healthcare organizations have the necessary budget, in-house expertise, tools, technology or staff to operate a medical call center.  Fortunately, outsourcing provides a perfect solution for medical groups, practices and hospitals.  Not only does outsourcing eliminate the need for healthcare facilities to invest in call center operations, but it provides a number of additional advantages as well.

Healthcare facilities leverage outsourcing to lower operational costs, facilitate patient satisfaction, boost patient revenue, access specialized expertise, increase flexibility and create more value overall for the organization.  These top six reasons to outsource to a medical call center can have a major impact on performance.

1.      Lower Operational and Labor Costs

Cost savings have long been the primary reason organizations outsource.  Like many companies operating in the current economic environment, healthcare provider revenues have been increasingly squeezed.  Lower reimbursement rates, for one, drive providers to cut costs wherever possible.

When healthcare providers partner with the right medical call center company, the properly executed outsourcing strategy delivers sizeable savings.  How?  For the most part, by eliminating investments in facilities, technology and staff.

Medical call center providers exploit economies of scale.  Because they provide services for many organizations and handle huge call volumes, they can afford to invest in innovative facilities and the latest call management technologies.  Most healthcare organizations can’t justify these hefty investments, especially with the constant pressure to lower costs and boost revenues.  

In addition, outsourcing eliminates staffing expenses -- the most expensive element of a medical call center.  Recruiting, hiring, training and managing both on-site and remote staff proves challenging for even the largest healthcare organizations. A successful call center requires experienced representatives, managers and IT professionals.  You need experts to manage call volume fluctuations, sophisticated analytic applications, 24/7 technology support, infrastructure security and more.

When you outsource, you gain savings and free-up internal resources that can contribute to achieving organizational goals.  A healthcare organization can have additional budget available for creating competitive advantages.  And, managers can focus more on core strategic initiatives.

2.      Provide Better Patient Care and Satisfaction

Poor customer satisfaction can make or break any business.  But healthcare organizations have even more at stake.  Because you’re dealing with a person’s well being, your call center operation must provide accurate information.  The medical call center staff requires professional knowledge and skills suited to your specific specialty. 

In the past, healthcare organizations were hesitant to trust third-party call centers.  However, three things happened to change healthcare providers’ attitudes on outsourcing:  well qualified medical call centers exist as a viable and attractive option, providers can no longer afford to operate a call center and, as mentioned earlier, healthcare organizations must find ways to cut operational costs.

When you partner with a qualified medical call center, your patients will be interacting with a professional organization that has the necessary expertise in healthcare operations as well as customer service.  The outsourcing provider can even enhance your customer relationship and retention. 

For example, proven outsourcers invest in software applications that provide detailed call metrics.  Using data from these applications, call centers develop meaningful quality assurance programs to ensure patients are handled in the best manner possible.

3.      Boost Revenue Generation

In addition to focusing on cost reductions, healthcare providers have a great opportunity to leverage their medical call centers for revenue generation.  Outsourced call centers integrate technology and processes to help providers get the most money from the care they deliver.

Professional call center representatives are trained to up-sell and cross-sell.  For instance, reps can expand their conversations beyond scheduling appointments.  Seminars, classes, additional services and other resources can be recommended to patients.  

4.      Tap into Specialized Expertise

With medical call center outsourcing, healthcare providers don’t need to use existing internal resources or acquire new resources that aren’t available in-house.  A healthcare organization can benefit from a medical call center provider’s expertise in creating operational efficiencies through professional staffing, call management and technology implementation.

Outsourcing companies are well versed in recruiting, hiring, training and managing the most appropriate call center representatives, managers and IT support staff available.  Well qualified medical call centers also understand how to accommodate call volume fluctuations and workers in multiple locations.

They know how to manage operations 24/7 using on-site and remote workers.  Call center companies that invest in advanced communication infrastructures can operate at peak efficiency with a remote workforce.  By allowing some employees to work at home, for example, a medical call center provider can attract top talent to fill positions. 

And, professional call center providers are experts at collecting and maintaining patient call data.  They can easily spot trends and opportunities for better service, operational efficiencies and potential revenue gains.

5.      Increase Operational Flexibility

Outsourcing allows any organization to easily scale their operation as internal needs dictate.  You can expand or downsize your outsourced call center quickly and easily.  If you gain patients, you can enlist the medical call center to serve the increased number of calls immediately.

Call center outsourcing also frees up space in your facility.  Healthcare providers don’t need to devote valuable facility space to agents, call center managers, IT personnel and equipment.  Outsourcers know how to make the most of call center workspaces.

6.      Build Value and Improve the Return on Investment

Because established medical call centers invest heavily in people, technology and processes, they’re able to provide their healthcare customers with a significant return on their investments.  They provide operational efficiencies that many healthcare organizations would be hard-pressed to realize in-house.  They’re also well positioned to generate additional revenue opportunities through up-selling and cross-selling patient services.

When the call center function is outsourced, you can focus on what matters most – delivering the best healthcare possible. And when you provide exceptional service, you’re able to build a loyal base of patients.

Working with AnswerNow

AnswerNowMD, AnswerNow's dedicated healthcare team, works exclusively with medical providers, hospitals, healthcare facilities and other businesses in the healthcare field. Our team ensures the clients and patients of our healthcare customers receive excellent care and attention when they call.

The AnswerNowMD team has the required expertise and experience to manage the complexities involved in patient care.  In addition, our staff receives rigorous, customized training before taking any calls.

Our medical call center services include:

• Call center outsourcing
  
• Co-sourcing
  
• Employment screening
  
• Voicemail – response and prioritization
  
• Customer service
  
• Data entry
  
• Discharge and patient surveys
  
• Patient follow-up
  
• Bilingual (Spanish) and interpreter services
  
• HIPAA secure messaging
  
• 24-hour messaging with multi-channel message output
  
• Appointment scheduling
  
• Appointment reminder – live and automated
  

For more information on AnswerNowMD, visit our website.

When considering outsourcing call center services, you should find a provider that offers a quick and easy way to calculate the savings from your investment.  A simple-to-use online calculator will help you see the results you can expect by working with a specific service provider.

Addressing Outsourcing Goals

By outsourcing your call center services, you have two major goals:  adding revenue and improving productivity.  Companies that have chosen to use a call center services provider have reported significant increases in revenue.  These businesses attributed more generated revenue because they were able to schedule more appointments. 

For example, the right service provider will be able to scale to a company’s requirements as needed.  A well qualified call center services provider can assist by adding staff during your peak times.  They can also provide 24-hour scheduling if you need to better serve your patients, clients or customers.

Next, the right call center services company will take your business operations to levels you haven’t seen before.  After outsourcing, one company said it was scheduling an average of almost a dozen more appointments each day.

Calculating the Impact

Experienced providers of call center services will know how their solutions will affect your revenues and productivity.  By providing an online calculator, they can estimate the impact to your bottom line for you. 

To begin the process, the calculator will ask you to input just a few figures and then it will calculate all the other costs that will make up your total annual call cost of running your call center.

For example, AnswerNow, a premiere answering service and bilingual call center service provider, developed a sophisticated call center calculator that’s available on the company’s website.  This tool helps companies determine the investment they’re making in outsourcing call center services. 

In addition, the calculator allows companies to more easily evaluate various call center solutions.  Each organization should experience top and bottom line results from working with their chosen provider.

How the AnswerNow Call Center Calculator Works

AnswerNow’s call center services calculator asks for three annual cost items:

1. Your total call center labor cost
2. The cost of your call center manager
3. The total number of call center employees

Then, the calculator uses your figures to automatically calculate your annual call center costs.  Using its experience, industry standard metrics and best practices, AnswerNow develops mathematical equations for each cost item to arrive at realistic and accurate figures.

Based on the three figures above, the cost item categories calculated are then added to arrive at a total annual cost of operating the call center.  The total outsourcing cost would include items such as:

• Payroll Incidentals
• Insurance Benefits
• 401K or Benefits Program
• Paid Time Off
• Paid Holidays
• Incidental Bonuses
• Headsets
• Chairs
• Computers
• Phone / Internet
• Hiring Costs
• Training
• Overhead
• Utilities

Why Outsourcing Call Center Services Makes Sense

Companies outsource call center services for a number of reasons.  They may not have the internal staffing to support the call center function.  They may want to save time and money.  Or they may want to remove the call center function so the company’s managers and employees can focus on more strategic initiatives. 

Whatever the reason, organizations outsource because they gain clear and measurable advantages.  Some of these benefits include:

• Expertise and Speed – When companies outsource call center services to a third-party provider, they’re enlisting the help of experts in the field who have the latest tools to help do the work.   These capabilities enable providers to often work quicker than what can be accomplished by the company’s in-house staff.

• Internal Productivity – Because the call center function is not being conducted in-house, employees and managers can devote their time to more important projects.  With productivity improved, everyone within the organization can work together to achieve corporate goals.

• Shared Responsibility and Risk – When you move call center functions to a service provider, the vendor shares the responsibility for running the operation.  Along with shared responsibility comes shared risk.  In other words, someone else becomes responsible and assumes the operational risks.  And by selecting the most qualified provider, you greatly lower the risk.

• Operational Costs – Using a call center services vendor eliminates the hiring of call center personnel.  Staffing and managing a call center can be very pricey.  In addition, companies don’t have to invest in the technology and facilities necessary to run an advanced call center.  The ability to significantly lower costs is the major benefit to outsourcing call center services.

Working with AnswerNow

Certainly cost and productivity advantages make using a call center a smart choice for most businesses. For these results to be achieved, you must select the right call center services provider.

By partnering with AnswerNow, the company’s clients were able to improve performance considerably, including adding more revenue and boosting productivity.  AnswerNow offers:

• A highly qualified, trained staff
• A team committed to your company and growing with you
• Bilingual capabilities
• Real-time accessibility to serve customers, clients or patients 24/7/365
• Advanced technologies to support your call center functions
• Proven quality assurance programs, monitoring and reporting

Once you determine your call center provider has the capabilities and services you require, you can focus on developing a true partnership.  The call center should be an extension of your in-house operation that delivers a top-notch first impression!

To calculate the costs to outsource your call center, visit AnswerNow’s website.  In addition to the call center services calculator, you’ll also find an abundance of other tools and resources readily available.