Phone System for Medical Practices and GP Surgeries
What is the best phone system for medical practices or GP surgeries? Many healthcare organisations today are understaffed and overworked, and this creates administrative problems in a society that needs its healthcare to be efficient and accessible. And undoubtedly, there is a need for a better communication system to increase performance and productivity.
A good telephone system allows you to communicate with your clients and every member of your team. The right phone system meets the specific needs of your profession. You serve your patients better, save more time and money. Everybody wins because you choose the right phone system.
What is the best phone system for medical practices and GP surgeries?
It is essential to know the available option before jumping to the conclusion of choosing a particular system. There are three, namely:
1. Digital phone system for medical practices – these are the traditional phone system connected to landlines or mobile phones in the office. The system relies on physical, on-site infrastructure, which makes it less sophisticated.
2. VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) phone system for medical practices – also called cloud or internet-based systems, VoIP allows you to make phone calls through the internet. It enables you to make calls on a computer or mobile, while it stores the information in a remote data centre. It is more flexible, sophisticated, and cost-efficient.
3. Hybrid phone system for medical practices – a hybrid system is a combination of the digital and VoIP phone systems. It allows you to use both simultaneously. A hybrid phone system is more reliable and efficient. So it is the best phone system for medical practices and GP surgeries.
What communication challenges does a medical office face and how do you resolve them?
Communication challenges could be frustrating and discouraging. If this happens in business, members of the team may understand or have the ability to cope with eventualities, but most patients won’t. Nobody wants to waste time holding a call only to repeat the information they have already provided. Your patients won’t be satisfied, and you may lose them. Even worse, they leave bad reviews and references. If you understand these challenges, then you can design your phone system to mitigate them.
1. Trouble getting through – if the phone system is slow and inadequate, then your patients can’t reach your office. So they can’t confirm their appointments, seek consultations or lodge their complaints. These patients may look for help elsewhere, probably with other care providers.
✅ Solution: you can reduce this problem by scaling your phone lines and using multiple virtual numbers. Therefore, ensuring business continuity.
2. Long wait times – when their calls do get through, they might wait a long time before a representative attends to them. Patients may eventually get tired of long wait periods and look for other options.
✅ Solution: you can mitigate this by increasing your phone lines, using auto-attendant, call transfer, and smart inbound call routing.
3. Overworked staff – you can’t have a proper workflow without good communication. It creates a poorly organized workplace that wastes human resources and infrastructure. This could make the team less productive, and members quickly get tired and stress. There won’t be clear communication between teammates and the patients, thus making it challenging to satisfy the patient.
✅ Solution: reduce this by installing a better phone system and using the statistics to scale your practice to meet customer demands.
VoIP phone system for medical practices and GP surgeries – Benefits and advantages
1. Call waiting
Why should you miss calls because your phone lines are engaged? Call waiting allows you to service multiple callers at the same time. Instead of an engaged tone, an automated message welcomes your patients. It informs them that your representatives are busy and tells them their position in the queue. You can entertain callers with music or essential information to keep them from getting frustrated and hanging up. It shows your patients that you are doing your best to satisfy them.
2. Call recording
Call recording allows you to capture and listen to any phone conversation in the future. Many medical practices and GP surgeries use call recording, and it can help to:
✅ to protect the practice from legal battles
✅ to monitor and improve staffs handling of patients
✅ to improve patients satisfaction.
3. Business continuity
A profitable medical practice should always be reachable during and after office hours. The business continuity feature ensures that you never miss a call from your patients. Staff can answer calls from anywhere on devices like laptops, mobile, and tablets. When you miss their phone calls, patients can leave a voicemail, which is VoIP forwards to your email. If VoIP fails, the digital phone system acts as a backup.
4. Auto-Attendant
Auto-attendant engages your callers as they get through and replace on the call queue. It uses an easy-to-follow interactive voice response system to instruct and prepare them for your staff. It is making their jobs easier. For example, “Press 1 for Prescriptions, Press 2 for appointments….” You can use the voice of a staff member or get a professional to do the voice over.
5. Statistic wallboard
A real-time statistics package allows you to track your office calls. You can monitor information like:
✅ the hours with the most calls (peak telephone hours)
✅ the hours with the most missed calls
✅ average answering time of calls
✅ how many callers get the engaged tones.
This information can inform your decision on how to adjust call and staff capacity to satisfy your customers.
6. Call transfer
Transfer callers to the right person with a click of a button. It doesn’t matter if you are transferring a call to a device inside or outside the office. Call transfer reduces waiting time and improves the patient’s experience.
7. Call logging
No matter how hard you try, you will still miss some calls, but that doesn’t make them missed opportunities. Call logging collects phone records, which allows you to return missed calls. Your patients will be grateful that you value them.
8. Smart inbound call routing
When an individual is busy, this feature automatically routes the call to another phone until someone answers. It makes your service faster, and your clients will be grateful and impressed. Smart call routing protects your phone lines from being clogged.
9. Mobile App
VoIP uses an app that is compatible with your phone or other devices. So, you can attend to your patients anywhere, any time. Always connect your phone to the internet, and you won’t miss their calls. You can use the practice’s virtual number or have a separate one for your mobile.
How can a VoIP phone system benefit your patients?
1. Improves customer experience
If the reception is the first and most crucial point-of-contact between you and your patients, then the phone line is a close second. VoIP ensures that your patients can also get through. It also entertains and manages the expectations of waiting callers. It makes your service faster and more efficient, even during peak season. Your customers have a good experience on every call because it was warm, productive, and time-efficient.
2. Improves efficiency and workflow
The right phone system doesn’t just connect you to your customers. It also provides features that suit the specific needs of a practice—making it more organised and productive. VoIP accomplished this by integrating the patient records with your phone system. When a call comes through, it logs it and displays the caller’s records on your screen. Therefore, reducing administrative time. VoIP also allows you to transfer and record calls easily. It also provides statistics showing how the phone system is faring—providing information that helps you make adjustments to improve workflow.
3. Enables team collaboration
Our VoIP phone system for medical practices or GP surgeries allows your team to make, receive, and transfer calls from any location, at work, home, or in transit. The app turns any device into a phone. It also includes conference calls that allow multiple team members to interact on a call.
4. Protects your team
Call recording is essential to any good phone system. It means you can monitor and reference the calls anytime in the future. You are thereby protecting your team from allegations and litigations. Call recording also helps in reviewing the performance and attitude of every member of your staff, including admin, nurses, and doctors.
5. Improves productivity and security
By improving the efficiency of your service, VoIP improves workflow, which helps to allocate your resources better. The result is a more flexible and productive practice. For example, because you have real-time statistics, you can increase the phone lines during peak hours. You can also divert resources to better use during the slow hours. It improves response time and overall care service.
VoIP also protects your data from unauthorized access and cyber-attacks. Your patient’s records are secure.
6. Reduces your running costs
How much does it cost to keep your phone lines open, every year? Apart from your telephone bills, this also includes the cost of buying, repairing, and replacing telephone equipment and the energy they consume. A cloud phone service removes your telephone bills, capital expenditure, and energy consumption. You can use VoIP on already owned devices, and your provider handles the software and hardware. So you save money.
How can Best 4 Business Communications help you?
We designed a phone system just for you because we understand the specific needs of your practice so that you can communicate smoothly with your team and patients at any time of the day. At Best 4 Business Communications, our package is better and cheaper than your current phone system. If you are looking for the best phone system for medical practices and GP surgeries, please contact our telecoms specialist today.
You can try our business VoIP phone system for FREE!
You can try our business VoIP phone system with a free 7-day trial. The free trial provides full access to our collaboration portal, where your employees can make use of all available features without any limitations. If you feel the system is not the best fit for you, the trial will end automatically. Click here to start your free trial.
Book a free demo today
It’s always best to have a knowledgeable advisor at hand to assist you with any significant decisions like choosing the right phone system for your business. You can book a free demo today with our telecoms expert and learn how our VoIP phone system can help grow your business.
Discover our collaboration tools along with all the features that you help you work more effectively and efficiently from your home. We are happy to assist in any way we can to support your needs. We can be reached by telephone on 0333 366 3333, or you can e-mail us at sales@b4bc.co.uk, and we will be happy to assist you.
“Our multi award-winning VoIP telephone systems allows you to handle calls with a professional greeting, a range of options to direct callers to the correct department and a queuing system to handle high call volumes.”
Jason Curtis – Business VoIP Specialist
