Virtual Appointment Scheduling

EqualizeRCM adds to your staff to ensure patient scheduling calls are handled on one call

Experienced virtual agents give your office the safety net of always having enough staff to answer patient appointment scheduling calls. No longer put patients through the frustration of long hold times, leaving voice messages, or simply hanging up and calling later. Patients can have their appointment scheduling calls handled on their first call, which dramatically increases patient satisfaction, dramatically increases patient loyalty, and dramatically increases the bottom line by efficiently handling these calls and getting every provider’s appointment calendar filled.

The process is simple. Our onboarding specialists listen to your specific needs and help you determine the time and conditions you want calls to overflow to ERCM virtual agents. Perhaps you want calls to forward after a set number of rings with no answer, or after a specific amount of hold time, or based on a specific IVR selection such as new or changed appointments. You also now have the flexibility to expand the hours during which a patient can reach a live agent. A careful study of existing customers discovered that on a typical day, just over one third of the calls regarding appointments were made in the hour before opening, over lunch, and the hour just after closing. Instead of sending those calls to after-hours answering services, then beginning the arduous, costly game of phone tag with the patient, have those calls answered by an ERCM virtual agent, who functions exactly as an employee does. Your staff, your providers, your patients, and your bottom line will thank you.

Our agents operate exactly as your office staff does

The first step in setting up the service is to have our experienced team leader work with you to make sure a mirror-image of all in-house call flows and scheduling rules are set up for our virtual agents. You patients will get the exact same experience as they do when reaching your staff, as we handle their calls. Our agents all have worked in practices before, and are well trained in handling these inquiries. Thorough training on your particular systems, rules and call flows is completed before going live.

ECRM provides coverage for your elastic staffing needs

The challenges of staying fully staffed on a daily basis are numerous. Turnover, absenteeism, vacation, and sick days are but a few of the influences that make it challenging to properly staff. One person unexpectedly being out can have a dramatic effect on the ability to handle call volumes, particularly on the typical Monday or day after a holiday. The cost of having to have the patient make more than one call is dramatically increased cost of multiple calls for one appointment issue, the increase in patient frustration, and the loss of possible new patients who become frustrated and call a competing office. Overflowing calls to ERCM’s virtual service eliminates all those issues, letting management focus on other issues, and keeping the provider schedules as full as they can be.

Data analysis of calls and trends helps your practice

EqualizeRCM not only provides the solution to get your patient calls for scheduling handled on the first call, increasing your net revenue, we also can provide detailed analysis of the data inherent in answering these calls. Our deep expertise in consulting on anything that affects revenue can help you optimize how you schedule, provider rule sets, or even cost analysis to help the decision on expanding the office with new providers and achieving growth year over year. Our value-added benefits deliver more than just answering the calls and managing the schedules, they deliver the most ROI possible.

To find out how we can solve your appointment scheduling issues, fill in the form below or just give us a call.

Virtual Appointment Scheduling