Healthcare is the fastest-growing industry in the United States, employing over 18 million workers, including 938,966 active physicians and 45,000 psychiatrists, 81,000 psychologists, and 198,811 therapists in the mental health field.
Almost two million patients visit hospitals and clinics daily, expecting high-quality care and efficient and reliable communication. Strong provider-patient communication is essential for creating a positive relationship. And this needs to be built on a strong medical office communication system.
Research has shown that communication can lead to better health outcomes, such as reducing medication errors, hospital readmissions, and patient satisfaction. There’s even https://healthcarecomm.org/about-us/impact-of-communication-in-healthcare/evidence that indicates a strong relationship between a healthcare team member’s communication skills and a patient’s ability to follow medical recommendations, self-manage a chronic medical condition, and adopt preventive health behaviors.
However, not all healthcare providers prioritize communication. Some may not be aware of its benefits, while others may not want to take the time to find the right platform. But, finding the right communication system can have significant benefits for your practice.
Secure and Effective Healthcare Communication in Practice
Updating outdated communication systems can significantly improve your practice. Benefits include reducing medical errors, improving patient safety, increasing productivity, reducing patient wait times, increasing patient throughput, and significantly cutting costs. Open communication with patients after a medical error occurs can also reduce emotional impacts and minimize patient avoidance of doctors and organizations involved in the error.
If you’re considering transitioning to a practice or new hospital communication system, look for a few key features, such as HIPAA-compliant, secure text messaging, automated on-call functionality, web and machine faxing, expedient call routing, and more.
Take it from Dr. Mark Dombeck, a licensed psychotherapist in Alameda, California. Like other psychologists, clinicians and behavioral therapists, he knew he needed to ensure he was utilizing a patient engagement platform that provided him with the components he wanted and met the requirements for HIPAA compliance.
As part of HIPAA, healthcare providers like Dr. Dombeck must implement safeguards to protect patient health information (PHI). However, law enforcement was initially primarily focused on medical communities, so many psychotherapists and their colleagues didn’t immediately emphasize implementing a compliant communications system.
Dr. Dombeck preferred a health engagement platform that used Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP) because of its cost savings, flexibility and mobility. He wanted a solution that would help him grow his practice while delivering optimal patient care. After thorough research, he selected RingRx.
“RingRx checked all the right boxes,” he explained. “Immediately, the service agent knew what I needed regarding HIPAA compliance and the Business Associate Agreement (BAA). I found robust features and an industry-leading HIPAA solution in the same service. The product offers a full range of technology and will serve as a worry-free solution that can extend and connect to new tools down the road.”
Read more about Dr. Dombeck and his experience with a communications platform customized to fit his unique practice needs.
A Full Range of Features and Functionality
RingRx was created to eliminate persistent communication problems experienced by medical office workers. How is this achieved? The RingRx platform offers custom, HIPAA-compliant cloud-based phone systems built exclusively for healthcare practices. The goal is to develop easy-to-use tools that help these professionals improve patient care while reducing costs and errors.
The RingRx phone system can be tailored to meet your specific preferences and requirements. You can even manage all your patient communication from a single app. Popular features include:
On-Call: Our fully automated answering service allows you to select how and when you want to be reached in real time. It includes personalized on-call profiles, shift reminder notifications, real-time scheduling updates and more.
Secure text messaging: With this feature, you can send text messages to your patients and colleagues from your smartphone — even sensitive patient information — without using your phone number.
Faxing: Send or receive HIPAA-compliant faxes from anywhere using the web, your fax machine — or both. Our contact directory helps make faxing to your regular recipients faster and more reliable.
Call routing: Utilize this feature to screen and route urgent calls to the on-call provider and send non-urgent calls to voicemail boxes or other destinations.
Virtual receptionist: You don’t have to have someone cover front desk duties to avoid missing patient calls. The feature enables you to automatically route calls through your organization based on operating hours or team responsibilities.
Privacy Defender: Eliminate frustration with robocalls, telemarketing and other spam calls. How? We require the caller to enter a two-digit number on their keypad — a test automated calls can’t detect.
API customization: Use our API to build your own specialized communication application. This enables you to create specialized call center functions, automate calls for outstanding bills and much more.
Full technology integration: Our communication system easily integrates with existing solutions, including analog hospital room phones, overhead paging systems, and nurse call bell systems. You can save time and cut costs by implementing voice, text, and fax in one solution.
Are you interested in maximizing the power of our enterprise software and quality telecommunications? If so, our expert team will help you create an office-wide system based on your existing framework and configure the perfect communications setup for each team member. Contact us today to learn more about RingRx!
