Managing a healthcare practice goes beyond routine administrative tasks. It encompasses a range of responsibilities, from policy implementation to problem-solving. As a medical office manager, you’re pivotal in ensuring the smooth operation of the practice. This includes a critical aspect often overlooked: the choice of technology, particularly the communications platform.
Technology in healthcare is not just about convenience; it’s about enhancing patient care and streamlining operations. The right communications platform can transform your practice, but how do you determine the best fit? This guide outlines three key questions to help you evaluate your current communications system.
1. Is your practice’s communications platform built to support secure patient engagement and communication?
Communication platforms in healthcare should support patient engagement by providing secure channels for patients to communicate with their healthcare providers, access health records and receive personalized health information (PHI). Why is this so important? Because it strengthens the patient-provider relationship, empowers individuals to take an active role in managing their health, increases practice efficiency and reduces administrative time.
You should be utilizing a solution that adheres to stringent security measures and provides full compliance with regulations such as HIPAA. In addition, Business Associate Agreements (BAAs) should be established with service providers to ensure compliance with HIPAA regulations, and all communications should be encrypted to prevent unauthorized access to protected health information.
2. Is your phone system designed for the healthcare industry to enhance collaboration among your team?
To provide high-quality patient care, all the members of your healthcare team — not only physicians — need to communicate effectively. Communication platforms built with healthcare practices in mind make it easy to communicate within your care team and enhance care, mitigating communications error that upset patients and push stress levels through the roof. .
Employing a communications platform that allows you to achieve these goals across multiple locations is especially important for larger healthcare practices. How is this achieved? By unifying separate VoIP phone lines and faxes and providing secure text capabilities. This streamlined communication enables real-time information sharing, appointment scheduling and easy call transfer, letting you handle patient inquiries quickly.
3. How many communications platforms does my practice need?
That depends on the size of your practice and its specific requirements. In many cases, though, consolidating systems is a smart approach that streamlines operations and reduces costs.
The best approach to consolidation involves conducting a thorough assessment of the communication systems your practice is currently using. This identifies any redundancies and allows for a proper migration plan to be developed. Then, your practice can transition to a unified platform — with minimal disruption to the daily operations of your practice.
Another essential component of the transition to a unified communication platform is staff training and support. You want to ensure every team member is comfortable with the new system, and that your provider provides customized implementation training and support.
We built the RingRx communications platform specifically for healthcare practices like yours. As a patient-first phone system that can be customized to meet the unique needs of your practice, it offers numerous features, including call routing, phone number portability, OnCall, web-and machine-based faxing and more. Schedule a demo today to learn how RingRx will work for your practice.
