On Call Central Frequently Asked Questions
What is On Call Central?
On Call Central is a Web-based medical answering service that tracks, routes and archives patient calls, physician responses and post-call patient directives. Using the latest technology to eliminate communication breakdowns, On Call Central improves patient care while protecting your practice from the risk associated with after-hours calls.
How is On Call Central different from a traditional medical answering services?
Traditional physician answering services are unreliable. Messages get relayed incorrectly, phone numbers get transposed and urgent calls are often misrouted. In addition, poorly-trained phone operators may result in inappropriate or inconsistent patient care that creates unnecessary risk for physicians.
On Call Central improves patient quality of care by enabling direct communication that’s secure, protected and private. We place management of after-hour calls in your capable hands – and put the patient in charge of relaying their own message and contact information.
Our reliable system lets you set up call receiving and routing protocols that are always strictly followed. Urgent calls are relayed instantly, patient messages are always recorded and you have the option of recording and archiving live calls with patients. This translates to less risk for your practice and better, more responsive care for your patients.
How do I manage my On Call Central system?
On Call Central can be accessed from any computer with an Internet connection. After securely logging in, our intuitive, easy-to-use Web interface allows you to control all system settings, including the call schedule, call routing logic, device preferences and so forth. You can also access a complete log of time-stamped inbound and outbound calls, listen to new voicemails or recorded archives and view, manage and print your personal call schedule.
Are the call routing capabilities flexible?
Extremely flexible. Your established call routing sequences are enhanced by the ability to forward or re-route calls as desired. Need another physician to take your calls for an hour or two? No problem. Simply login to On Call Central and enter your changes. And, there’s no limit to how many routing changes you can make. You can even specify how to receive notification of patient messages, such as by pager or as a text message on your cell phone.
What if I prefer to be called when I have a message?
On Call Central can automatically call your cellular or landline phone whenever a patient has left a message. And if you choose to be notified in this manner, On Call Central will even allow you to return your patient’s call with a single button push. (Automatic callback ID blocking ensures that your private telephone numbers are always protected.)
Our group practice has a rotating call schedule. How does that work?
On Call Central makes it easy to set up a call schedule for your multi-physician practice and modify it as needed. Because the system automatically knows which doctor is on call, you’ll never get a 2:00am call that’s meant for your colleague.
A simple drag and drop interface lets you define a call schedule template for your practice, and drag the right physician to the right day. Managing and modifying the call schedule for an entire month can literally be done in less than minute.
What’s more, On Call Central makes it easy to send out a broadcast text message to some, or all, physicians in your practice. This is a great way to communicate an urgent patient situation (e.g. “Someone needs to go see X patient in the ER”) or for coordinating events (e.g. “Drug rep dinner pushed back to 7PM”).
How does On Call Central handle urgent calls?
On Call Central allows you to create a customized phone tree that allows you to determine which calls are of a highest priority before you even retrieve a patient’s voicemail or return their phone call. For example, if a patient selects an option that sends them down a high priority portion of your phone tree (e.g. “Press 1 if you are in labor”), you can receive a text message appropriate for the situation (e.g. “URGENT: Patient in labor”). Non-urgent options within your phone tree can send you messages such as “Medication refill.”
Do I need special equipment to use On Call Central?
No. On Call Central is deployed as a Web-based software-as-a-service application so there’s no need to install or maintain any software or hardware. On Call Central supports the communication devices you’re already using on a daily basis, including numeric and alphanumeric pagers, land lines, and cell phones (we can even send text messages to your cell phone).
Is my patient data protected?
Absolutely. On Call Center has been built from the group up with security in mind. We use a robust, reliable and redundant data center that utilizes the latest security standards to secure your patient data against unauthorized access. These multi-layer security safeguards are designed to help you meet your obligations under HIPAA.
All Web traffic is served over a connection that has 256-bit data encryption, the highest level of commercially-available data encryption. In addition to unique usernames and passwords, each On Call Central account is set up with an exclusive sub-domain (e.g. https://www.your_practice.oncallcentral.com) to further enhance security.
Where is your data center located?
On Call Central is hosted at Rackspace Managed Hosting, the leader in managing hosting solutions. Rackspace’s facility is designed for a secure environment, with biometric surveillance for data center access, fire suppression technologies, security cameras and 24/7 security.
Our server runs what is called a RAID5 configuration, which means that a hard drive can fail without having any impact on the system. Additionally, drives are “hot swappable,” meaning that they can be replaced without powering down the server. The server also has redundant power supplies.
Is my privacy protected? (I don’t want patients to know my home phone number.)
Of course. Automatic callback ID blocking ensures that your private telephone numbers are always protected.
I would like to bill for certain after hours phone calls. Can On Call Central help?
On Call Central enables billable telemedicine by allowing you to flag certain parts of your phone tree as potentially billable. Whenever a call is received that originates from a billable portion of your tree (e.g “Medication refill”), we automatically flag the call record so that your office staff can follow up the next day and, if appropriate, bill the patient for the phone call.
How does On Call Central reduce my risk?
There are many ways that On Call Central reduces physician risk. The system creates a searchable call/callback archive, optionally stores recordings of live phone calls and allows you to record dictations documenting your patient directives. In potential malpractice situations, this eliminates the ‘your word against mine’ conflict by providing exculpatory evidence that supports your position in the claim.
Does the system timestamp my calls?
Yes. On Call Central timestamps both incoming patient calls as well as outgoing responses to those calls. Your call log will note the time that an outgoing call was placed, even if you’re unable to reach the patient. This provides documentation of a good faith effort to return the call.
Does it record my calls/conversations with patients?
That’s up to you. On Call Central can record all calls, no calls or only designated calls/conversations. For example, you might want to record your calls to patient, but not physician consults. These flexible recording options make it easy to manage your risk using procedures that make sense for your given situation. Plus, flexible archiving options let you decide how long to archive recorded calls.
Note: On Call Central automatically notifies patients when calls are being recorded to keep you in compliance with Federal and State call recording laws.
How does the note dictation work?
After you receive a voicemail or speak with a patient, On Call Central gives you the option to dictate a note about your interaction. This dictation gets appended to the patient’s call record, and can later be entered into a chart by administrative staff or sent to a third party service for transcription.