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How Medical Offices Prevent Losses with a Cloud PBX

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As physicians have begun to opt for their own physician-owned practices, time and operating expenses have come to the forefront of the conversation.

Not only that, but from diagnosing and treating patients to dictation and documentation, making the most of your front and back office means keeping everything running smoothly and keeping the flow of patients uninhibited.

That begs a couple of questions. Where are you losing opportunities and dollars with your current setup, and more importantly, what do cloud PBX and VoIP do to resolve their underlying causes?

Keep reading to discover the common causes of lost opportunities in your physician-owned office and some simple ways to prevent them with VoIP and a cloud PBX.

  1. Stagnant vs. Stellar Patient Experiences

Patient experience starts when they walk in the door or call your front desk. So, when are outdated systems no longer a budget-saver?

It starts with a common scenario.

You’ve got a line of patients waiting to talk to one or two receptionists. The phone rings. Slowly but surely, you can see the disappointment settle onto patient faces as the call shuts down the reception desk.

That slowdown can cost in terms of star ratings and patient reviews, but it can also result in cancellations. Virtual or cloud PBXs address these experiential slowdowns and cancellation risks in several ways.

Firstly, they handle the routing of calls, like you’d expect from a physical PBX. However, unlike physical PBXs, they take no third-party programs in order to provide interactive voice response (IVR) options. So, from the start VoIP will route calls using a virtualized cloud PBX, reaching where copper phone lines will never go – laptops, mobile phones and smartphones.

Also, the VoIP tech underlying cloud PBXs enables voicemail to email transcription, giving your office the power to connect with patients even when you can’t take a call. All in all, the variety and immediacy of these advantages means faster patient processing, a better experience and more options for your whole team.

  1. Sneaky Little Budget Thieves

Physicians often resort to sacrificing personal pay in order to ensure their practice breaks even or makes a small profit. Rather than taking one for the team, you can hunt down those little budget thieves that are nickel-and-diming the practice.

One place to start looking is in long-term operating costs. Landline phone services and physical PBXs both take bites out of the budget over time – probably in ways you might not expect.

The first cost is through maintenance and repairs. Physical PBXs do not update their firmware automatically. So, when protection updates or bug fixes are released, you’ll need to pay that IT person you know to keep it tip top. Also, unless you’ve got full time IT staff, you’ll be giving him or her a call if and when the PBX has an issue.

Cloud PBXs like that in 4Voice’s VoIP platform are maintained by the developers and IT staff of the provider.

That’s one less dollar going to those spendy IT services. Also, it means your quality of service won’t suffer from the loss of a single piece of broken equipment.

4Voice Advantage: 4Voice also provides the best customer service in the industry. What does that mean? Well, it’s not just answering the phone quickly when you have an issue. In fact, that’s rarely where 4Voice is needed, due to their proactive, 24/7 service monitoring. Thanks to its cutting-edge monitoring and talented staff, clients rarely have a chance to experience a service interruption – standard issues are usually fixed before they even impact service!

  1. Contracts and Mobility

Probably the least surprising way to reclaim lost dollars is through the savings that come from using cloud PBX and its underlying VoIP service. With minimal charges for long distance, no additional fees for carrier service, no fixed bundles of lines (yes, you can add individual lines now!) costs will plummet. With 4Voice, specifically, you pay per seat and aren’t required to buy lines you won’t use – ever.

Rent increases aren’t as terrible, either. If you’re forced to move to keep costs down, VoIP service means you won’t have to purchase entirely new lines – they follow you wherever you take your mobile, computer and office equipment.

Lastly, one private firm estimated that 75 percent of all medical communication occurs through fax exchanges. Tossing the PBX system for a VoIP means you have the option to slash all of the hours wasted on physical faxing.

That’s one more relic you can toss in the trash next to the rotary phone, PBX and that rolodex you haven’t used since Cheers was still on the air.

Are you looking to upgrade to a less expensive, modern solution for your business? If so, take a deeper look at the most significant benefits VoIP has to offer with our free guide.

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Amruth Laxman
About the Author

Amruth Laxman

25+ years of telecom experience, specializing in high availability software and systems, I’ve seen the transformative impact they have on businesses. As the founding partner of 4Voice, I deliver customized, reliable phone solutions and can’t wait to share my insights with you in this blog.

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