Blog
Best practices, product updates, and the occasional industry rant.
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Can AI Really Handle 90% of Your Calls?
· by On Call Central
“AI can handle 90% of your calls.” It’s a bold claim. In healthcare, bold claims deserve scrutiny. Many practice leaders have already experimented with AI in other parts of their organization; automated patient chatbots that frustrated users, “smart” scheduling assistants … Read More
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The Front Desk Staffing Crisis in Urgent Care. (And What To Do About It)
· by On Call Central
How Staffing Shortages Are Disrupting Urgent Care Front Desk Operations Urgent care has a staffing problem. Not on the clinical side. Not in the exam rooms. At the front desk. Across the country, urgent care operators are struggling to recruit, … Read More
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How to Track Provider Response Times with Automated Call Reporting
· by On Call Central
A Clear, Verifiable Record of Every After-Hours Call In a medical practice, it isn’t enough to assume after-hours calls are being handled correctly. You need to verify they are. When an urgent message comes in at night, was it delivered? … Read More
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Is It Time to Replace Your Answering Service? A Look at Common Red Flags
· by On Call Central
Not all medical answering services are created equal. For too many practices, what starts as a reliable partnership slowly degrades into a constant source of frustration, and risk. Delayed messages, misrouted calls, and a lack of accountability aren’t just workflow … Read More
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Built-In Escalation Logic: What Happens When a Doctor Doesn’t Answer the First Time?
· by On Call Central
When a patient’s health is on the line, silence is never an acceptable outcome. Yet every practice has experienced it: the on-call provider doesn’t answer. Maybe they’re driving. Maybe their phone was on silent. Maybe they saw the message and … Read More
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The Mobile Advantage: How Physicians Can Review and Return Calls On the Go
· by On Call Central
In modern medical practice, responsiveness isn’t a luxury, it’s an expectation. But expecting a physician to be glued to a phone after hours is unrealistic. Today’s on-call doctors are on the move; rounding at hospitals, driving between facilities, even trying … Read More
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On Call Central acquires Professional Voice Messaging
· by On Call Central
Professional Voice Messaging, Inc. has been acquired by On Call Central. On Call Central is fully automated, shares many similarities with the Cadusys system, and includes a bunch of modern conveniences. Professional Voice Messaging was founded 32 years ago by … Read More
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Business Continuity During COVID-19
· by On Call Central
A message from Our President about On Call Central’s business plan during the Coronavirus pandemic On Call Central is open amidst the current coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak and ready to help our medical practices in these changing and challenging times. We … Read More
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On Call Central Secure Chat
· by On Call Central
Effective today, we offer On Call Central Secure Chat, an add-on service that powers text communications with colleagues in a HIPAA-compliant manner. Features of On Call Central secure chat include: Chat is available on both iOS and Android. No separate … Read More
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Why Your Medical Answering Service Shouldn’t Work From Home
· by On Call Central
In addition to offshore companies, work-from-home call center operators are beginning to grow in popularity. Companies like Amazon, Dell, Hilton, and Humana are only a few of the biggest companies planning or already using remote, from-home call operators. Though it … Read More
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History of Call Centers
· by On Call Central
Call centers originated in the 1960s when Birmingham Press and Mail installed Private Automated Business Exchanges to rows of agents who managed those contacts. By 1973 call centers became mainstream, and Rockwell International patented its Galaxy automatic Call Distributor (GACD) … Read More
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What an Automated Medical Answering Service Can Do For You
· by On Call Central
If your practice’s office is opened 8 hours a day, on average. That is 40 hours out of the total 168 in the week. Rounding up, you or someone in your practice answer the phones 25% of the week. So … Read More
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The Potential Dangers of Using Offshore Answering Services
· by On Call Central
There are many potential risks to hiring offshore answering services for your medical answering service. In order to be able to closely manage your patients’ care and the overall quality of your practice, you need an answering service that is … Read More
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How Your Automated Answering Service can Increase Patient Lifetime Value
· by On Call Central
The business part of healthcare is not discussed very openly very often. However, it is an important part of healthcare. It is what pays your bills and keeps you alive and healthy as well. It is the same as advertising … Read More
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On Call Central Office Update
· by On Call Central
We are about to boost our efforts in many areas of our business this summer and we are doing this with the help of our three newest recruits. Firstly, we have added on the excellent Eliot Bennie in Sales, an … Read More
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Customizability and Flexibility Using Protocols and Departments
· by On Call Central
When using our software you can tailor certain aspects of it to suit your needs. This includes being able to customize your department(s) and protocols. If your practice has multiple specialties, or multiple providers on call simultaneously you can have … Read More
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We pick up on the first ring every time!
· by On Call Central
One of the largest inconveniences of a live answering service is that, as humans, the operators have a limited capacity to handle high call volumes. This can lead to your patients being placed on hold for extended periods of time. … Read More
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Automated Message Transcription
· by On Call Central
Today the engineering team at On Call Central released one of the most frequently-requested features: automated transcription. Video demo below. As of today, all messages left using either the On Call Central paging module or email module will have automated … Read More
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On Call Central Mobile Application Update: More Call Log
· by On Call Central
This morning we released an over-the-air update to the On Call Central mobile applications for iOS and Android. To update to the latest code, simply exit and reopen the app; there should be no need to re-download from the App … Read More
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Creative Daytime Uses for On Call Central
· by On Call Central
While our service is most commonly used after business hours, it can also be a useful tool to take advantage of during the day. There are two ways that On Call Central can be creatively used during your normal operating … Read More
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How We Work With Outside Practices In Your Call Pool
· by On Call Central
Different Answering Services Within the Call Pool One of the most common reservations we hear from prospective clients is that they’re in a call pool with offices that use other answering services. We’re here to let you know that … Read More
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8 Ways to Reduce After Hours Call Volume in Medical Practice
· by On Call Central
8 Ways to Reduce After Hours Call Volume in Medical Practice Every medical practice must deal with managing after-hours consults and patient care requests. Unfortunately, most live operators are not medically trained, and can do a poor job of … Read More
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Overview of the On Call Central Dashboard
· by On Call Central
On Call Central Dashboard The Dashboard is the first screen encountered when you login to your On Call Central web interface. This guide, as well as the accompanying video, provides an overview of the dashboard and goes into detail about … Read More
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On Call Load Balancing Module
· by On Call Central
Today we released a feature that has been in the works for several months: fully automated round robin call distribution. This is deployed via a new On Call Balancing module. Rather than linking to a single call schedule, the On … Read More
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A Guide To Sound Voice Menu Design
· by On Call Central
One of the features that adds great flexibility to On Call Central is the ability to create multiple voice menus and schedule when certain menus will play. Voice menu scheduling allows you to create customized caller experiences that are appropriate … Read More
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Hurricane Irma Update and FAQs
· by On Call Central
While some of our users in southeast Texas are still recovering from Harvey, those in south Florida and the east coast are preparing for the impact of Irma. We’ve fielded several calls, emails, and support tickets on this topic, so … Read More
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Automating Management of Overflow Call Volume
· by On Call Central
Summary Sporadically high call volume is an increasingly common issue in the modern medical practice. Peak call times, such as Monday mornings, lunch, and closing time are often characterized by inbound call volume that exceeds a practice’s ability to immediately … Read More
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Avoiding Gmail Spam Filters
· by On Call Central
On Call Central clients recently have contacted us stating that messages from On Call Central have not been received in their Gmail accounts. The issue is the very erratic Gmail spam filter, and the video below shows you how to … Read More
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Case Study: Family Practice Associates of Lexington
· by On Call Central
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On Call Central Customer Satisfaction Survey
· by On Call Central
Last week we conducted our first formal customer satisfaction survey. Customer satisfaction is extremely important to us, since a large portion of our growth is driven by customer referrals. Though additional responses may trickle in, we now have enough data … Read More
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On Call Central Detailed Demonstration
· by On Call Central
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Patient Centered Medical Home 1 Element B
· by On Call Central
Several practices recently have approached us as part of an initiative to achieve Patient Centered Medical Home (PCMH) recognition. For those who may be interested in learning more, the below presentation from a recent NCQA standards workshop is a great … Read More
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How Does On Call Central Handle Non-Urgent Calls?
· by On Call Central
A common question from people interested in On Call Central is, “How does an automated system determine if a call is urgent or non-urgent?” This is a great question that is on the mind of many people. As with any … Read More
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Setting iPhone SMS Ringtones for On Call Central
· by On Call Central
SMS messaging is the most common notification method for On Call Central users, and the iPhone is the most common phone. One request we receive from our users is how to set make their iPhone play a different tone when … Read More
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How To Forward and Unforward Phones
· by On Call Central
We occasionally get clients who are completely new to using an answering service and have a basic question: How do you forward your phones? Forwarding Phones To forward your phones to On Call Central, do the following: Using the phone … Read More
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The Unexpected Uses of Call Recordings
· by On Call Central
We’re often asked by new On Call Central users whether or not they should record live calls. This question invariably leads to a discussion of the various ways in which call recordings have been used by our clients. Given the … Read More
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On Call Central Demonstration Video
· by On Call Central
This updated video provides an updated overview of On Call Central’s functionality and how it can benefit your business.
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Calculating Your Practice’s Medical Malpractice Risk
· by On Call Central
The August 18th issue of the New England Journal of Medicine contained what has to be one of the most robust studies of medical malpractice risk ever conducted. Anupam B. Jena and a bunch of other smarties at Harvard Medical … Read More
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Why We Do Not Send Protected Health Information via SMS
· by On Call Central
At On Call Central, we take security and patient privacy seriously. One of the questions we frequently receive relates to the manner in which we send SMS notifications to providers. On Call Central SMS notifications are conspicuously absent of protected … Read More
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Direct Notification Systems Outperform Live Operators
· by On Call Central
In the past several weeks I’ve been speaking with providers and practice managers frustrated by the quality of after-hours communications. Despite dissatisfaction with their current service, many providers have the impression that a live service is somehow better for patient … Read More
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MGMA Annual Conference Demo
· by On Call Central
We just spent the last four days in Denver at the MGMA Annual Conference and received great feedback from attendees. We performed so many demonstrations of the software that we thought it would make sense to record a video demonstration … Read More
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Top Ten Reasons To Fire Your Medical Answering Service
· by On Call Central
Over the past several months I’ve had the opportunity to speak with many physicians and practice managers interested in On Call Central as a replacement for their medical answering service. The discussions frequently return to a handful of key points, … Read More
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Medical Answering Services And Documentation of Calls
· by On Call Central
In developing On Call Central as an alternative medical answering service, one of the issues we have attempted to address is provider non-compliance as it pertains to the process of documenting patient phone interactions. In research the scope of the … Read More