Patient Partner
Communicating effectively with your patients is the key to a successful surgery but achieving this economically has always been a challenge!
For instance, you need to increase the amount of staff available at peak times to answer incoming calls, this in turn means that you need additional lines added to the system which all present extra costs to the business.
Most of this planning is achieved by using 'guesswork' as very few surgeries are able to report on the phone usage accurately and rely on their receptionists to say when they are busy or quiet. This of course only takes into account calls that make it through and not the ones that receive the dreaded engaged tone! Of course this is just one part of the overall communication needs of the Surgery and much more technology is available to help you become more efficient in handling calls.
Patient Partner is an application that interfaces between your telephone system and your practice management software, and provides patients with the ability to book appointments at anytime of the day or night. The system simply answers the incoming call and gives the patient the option of booking an appointment without the need for a receptionist to get involved. Appointments slots can be allocated by the practice manager to control use and because it is working directly with the software users can override appointments where necessary. This frees staff up to perform other duties and because it operates 24/7 patients are offered an enhanced service.
