Every medical practice should be striving to enhance their productivity and provide the best possible treatment for their patients. However, making progress is difficult in such a fiercely competitive industry, so it can feel as though your practice is standing still. When you combine this with the fact that healthcare workers are experiencing high levels of burnout, you start to understand that you’ve got a mountain to climb. But reaching the summit isn’t out of the realms of possibility. And you can significantly improve your chances with a remote receptionist.
Manning a Remote Reception
The concept of a remote reception may, at face value, sound like an unworkable concept. After all, a receptionist is there to meet and greet patients and visitors. If they’re removed from your practice, and working from a remote location, how exactly can they fulfil their role? Well, 20 years ago, this would have made an excellent point, but things have changed since then.
A remote receptionist is now a real option for medical practices, and one which generally provides a major upgrade over a traditional, in-house receptionist. As with many developments in the modern world, we have the internet to thank for the emergence of the remote receptionist. At the start of the 21st century, internet speeds were only suitable for basic browsing and emailing. And anyone who attempted to do more will tell you that it was impossible to, for example, conduct a video call without the connection dropping out. Thankfully, technology advances at a rapid rate.
Modern internet speeds have made the virtual assistant not just a possibility, but a necessity for any business looking to transform their operations. Now, even the most standard home internet connection allows people to carry out complex and data intensive tasks with ease. This is why the days of pixelated, frozen and unreliable video calls are now a thing of the past. It’s a development which has not just enhanced performance, but also made the world more connected.
With the internet making the world a smaller place, virtual assistants have started to thrive and build in popularity among businesses. And with the restrictions imposed by the pandemic, remote work appears to be here to stay. The good news is that virtual assistants can easily compete with in-house assistants and often outstrip their performance, with 85% of remote workers feeling they’re more productive working from home.
So, how does a remote receptionist work? Just how much do you need to invest in them to get one onboard? Luckily, for any business with one eye on their budget, the costs are minimal. All a remote receptionist needs is a PC and an internet connection, both of which they provide themselves. All your practice needs to generate is a username and password for the remote receptionist to log on to your IT infrastructure.
Unlocking the Advantages of a Remote Receptionist
When you install a remote reception within your practice, you’re instantly opening your business up to a number of benefits which were previously unobtainable. These benefits can help you inch ahead of your competitors, increase revenue, and most importantly, transform the service you provide to your patients. The main benefits which will optimize your practice for success are:
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Cost Reductions:
Every medical practice wants to reduce their costs as it benefits both provider and patient, but achieving this has proved difficult. However, you can make this easier by bringing in a remote receptionist. With an estimated reduction in operating costs of 78%, the installation of a remote receptionist is highly attractive. And when you consider that remote workers can secure you savings of around $11,000 compared to an in-house assistant, the cost savings are hard to ignore. These savings are made possible as the need to pay added costs such as holiday pay, sick leave, and pension contributions are eliminated.
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Boost in Efficiency:
Healthcare professionals are being held back from concentrating on patient care due to large administrative burdens. This impacts their ability to perform at their highest level and results in reduced care quality for patients. But you can remedy this by bringing in a remote receptionist. By delegating routine administrative tasks to virtual assistants, healthcare professionals can reclaim valuable time and focus on patient care
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Flexibility:
One of the key benefits of hiring a remote receptionist is the opportunity to fit their schedule around your exact business needs. Whether you require help for just a few hours a day or intermittently throughout the week, a remote receptionist can adapt to your demands. They offer flexibility which in-house staff are simply unable to match, moving seamlessly in and out of your business. Plus, you’re not locked into rigid contracts, ensuring that you only pay for the support you need.
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Around-the-Clock Availability:
Excellent healthcare demands a 24/7 service all across the industry. And this also applies to medical practices. However, delivering 24/7 coverage for your patients can be a challenge, especially when employees need rest and night shifts are less desirable. Fortunately, with many virtual assistants working in different time zones, offering seamless and constant support is now possible. This enables your practice to not only complete administrative duties overnight, but also handle patient communication.
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Access to Top Talent:
If you want to find the perfect remote receptionist, you need to cast your net wide. Relying purely on local talent harms your search for the best of the best. But when you open up your search to the entire planet, you increase your chances of finding that remote receptionist who’s the perfect fit. This allows to choose from a wealth of talent and bring in a remote receptionist who delivers the service you and your patients demand.
The Impact of Installing a Remote Reception
The healthcare industry is a hive of activity, with critical decision making required at every moment of the day. Naturally, this can make it a tough industry to work in, and one where the patient suffers as a result. Accordingly, this needs to be addressed, so why not consider a remote receptionist? Thanks to their rich experience and substantial skillset, they’re perfectly placed to take on the following tasks:
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Patient Communication:
With an individual physician seeing, on average, around 22 patients a day, it’s clear that the demands of patient communication are going to be intense for your practice. This is why you need a remote receptionist on hand. They can come into your practice and act as the first point of contact for your patients by answering calls, addressing inquiries, and directing calls to the appropriate departments. This approach ensures patients receive the information they need and allows your healthcare professionals to focus on their main priorities.
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Appointment Scheduling and Management:
Delayed appointments and poor scheduling can cause stress for patients and increase the chances of no-shows. With the rising administrative demands in healthcare, maintaining an organized schedule becomes challenging. However, a remote receptionist can help solve this problem. They can manage your appointment calendar, send reminders to reduce missed visits, and promptly fill any cancellations, ensuring a smoother, more efficient booking system for your practice.
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Electronic Medical Records:
Efficient electronic medical record (EMR) management is crucial for effective patient care. But healthcare professionals don’t always have the time to pull themselves away from patient-centric duties to update the EMR accurately and comprehensively. A remote receptionist, however, can be tasked with this as one of their primary duties. This enables your practice to keep records accurate, up-to-date, and accessible to everyone who needs them, maximizing patient care and improving outcomes.
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Welcoming Patients:
Patients won’t be physically attending your remote reception, so you may be worried that this means your patients won’t be greeted, an essential part of the patient experience. Fortunately, with videoconferencing tools, a remote receptionist can appear on a screen at your reception area. And as patients have become more accustomed to video technology in healthcare, this approach provides a warm, personal greeting. Best of all, it’s achieved in a manner which takes up virtually no physical space.
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Email Management:
In today's healthcare landscape, the flood of emails has become overwhelming, so much so that some doctors are thinking about charging per response. But rather charging your patients for something so simple, why not streamline the process with the help of a remote receptionist? They can manage inboxes, filter out spam, prioritizing urgent messages, and organizing emails into clear categories. By delegating email management, your practice can maintain a smooth communication flow with patients and maximize patient/physician time.
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Follow-Up Communication:
After a patient’s appointment, a remote receptionist can take charge of following up via phone, email, or text message. This enables the remote receptionist to check on the patient’s well-being, give them reminders of follow-ups, or provide details relating to their medication. It’s a personalized brand effective form of communication which improves patient engagement, fosters trust, and strengthens the patient/provider relationship.
It's Time for a Remote Receptionist at Your Practice
Enhancing patient satisfaction should be one of your practice’s main priorities, and it’s been observed that a remote receptionist can increase this by 30%. Therefore, bringing a remote receptionist into your setup is a surefire way to transform your service. First, though, you need to find one. But where?
How can you reach out, across the oceans and continents to find a remote receptionist based on the other side of the planet? You’re going to need some help, and you’re in the right place as Hello Rache can provide you with all the help you need. Having been a major player in the virtual industry for many years, we’ve established an unparalleled roster of talent to help bolster the productivity of medical practices. And yours could be next.
We like to keep things simple and transparent at Hello Rache and that’s why our virtual assistants are available at a flat rate of $9.50 per hour. That doesn’t include a single setup fee and there’s certainly no contract fee lurking in the background. You simply pay $9.50 per hour of work logged. And yes, you have full access to time tracking and monitoring software to verify what you’re paying for.
Along with a dedicated account manager to deal with your every query, we also make sure that you can work with the same remote receptionist every day, maintaining continuity and allowing you to build a strong relationship with them. It’s the major shot in the arm that your practice needs and it’s just what the doctor ordered.
Interested in getting started on building your remote reception? Just click here and we can help you with your first steps.
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