Outsourced answering service guide

This practice involves hiring a third-party provider to handle customer inquiries and concerns via phone, live chat, or other communication channels. Outsourced answering service has become increasingly popular in recent years as businesses look for ways to provide high-quality customer support without breaking the bank.

For small businesses that may not have the resources to maintain an in-house customer service team, outsourced answering services can be a lifesaver. These services offer a range of features, such as appointment scheduling, message delivery, and customized call scripts, depending on the needs of the client.

Popular providers (including Nisos Technologies) in this industry offer outsourced answering service with live operators available 24/7 to answer questions and provide assistance. Other reputable agencies (again, including Nisos Technologies) offer live chat services along with their answering service.

Answering services handle a much simpler workflow than call centers handle. These answering services companies are almost always “answering” i.e. handle incoming inquiries.

Most of the time, outsourced answering service companies answer the inbound inquiry, note down the customer details and pass on the message to someone in your business that can handle that inquiry. That’s why most calls handled by an answering service last 1-2 minutes. 

Some outsourced answering services can also take it a step further to be virtual receptionists.  These virtual receptionists can handle more complex cases of appointment scheduling / updates/ cancellations, can register customers, create service tickets etc.
For many small businesses that alone is sufficient.

Medium to larger businesses, however, require call centers for business growth. A call center handles incoming and outgoing customer interactions, handle more complex interactions like customer / patient intake, care coordination, handling billing related queries, processing prescriptions related calls etc. I grew my medical group practice leveraging a medical call center. I treated them as offsite partners and let them help me with finding, servicing and retaining patients.

An outsourced answering service helps you capture and retain more customers – 24/7. If done correctly, an outsourced answering service will answer every single call that your business gets – even after hours. An outsourced answering service can answer all the queries of a caller – even after hours. It can call patch / route only specific calls to your team as well.
Callers can decide to give you their business after interacting with your answering service – even after hours. Existing customers can interact with your business 24/7, on their own terms using your answering services. This helps you keep existing customers happy. Therefore, you retain more customers for life. If implemented correctly, an outsourced answering service will also handle laborious new customer intake processes, reduce all (if not most) daily interruptions.
More technologically advanced answering services will extend a business’ customer support channels to web, email, text messages, social media, WhatsApp etc.

– Your business gets a unique phone number from the answering service. Thereafter, you can forward as many or all calls from your business phone number(s) to this phone number. Forward calls to this number 24/7, on-demand, overflow, after-hours, weekends or holidays. That depends on your choice and agreement.
– The outsourced answering services IT team will typically add chat support to your business website. Thereafter, your answering services team will start answering customer chats 24/7. No more missed opportunities.
– Your business is given a unique text messaging number. If you ever part ways with your answering services team, you can port this number and keep it for life. You can market this text messaging number to anyone. Your outsourced answering services team will start answering customer text messages using their own technology.
– Start to train your answering services team on your custom business needs, answering scripts, business processes etc.
If your business has some answering scripts, make sure you share the same with your answering services team. These scripts could be used to gather information for callers, upsell current customers, handle support queries etc. You can also add / change / modify scripts at any time.
– Most outsourced answering services teams use a CRM for their work. Every call, text message, WhatsApp, fax etc is logged in their CRM. You have access to this at all times. However, if your business has its own CRM tool, the answering services IT team sets up the integration with your in-house system or CRM.
– If you prefer that your answering service team alert you whenever needed, they can call you, email or text the correct staff member on your team and pass necessary information as well.
– Establish how to handle urgent calls. Most outsourced answering services teams triage urgent calls for you. As you work together, you teach your team on your escalation process.
If you want to monitor communication quality, understand how to use your answering service’s CRM. Most respectable answering services teams use their own CRM. Their CRM records all calls, all text messages and everything in between. You have access to the same information that we do. You’ll have access to call transcripts as well

– Business + revenue growth comes from increased customer base and low customer churn.
– Customer acquisition occurs from inbound leads or outbound demand generation. Outbound demand generation is more expensive than inbound leads. It's cheaper to convert inbound leads.
– Higher positive Google reviews lead to your business being “found” more than your competitor(s). This leads to more inbound business enquiries / leads.
– Happier customers leave positive business reviews (when reminded to). Unhappy customers leave negative reviews without being prompted to do so.
– Being easier to do business with leads to happier customers. Being easy to reach is a big part of “being easier to do business with”. A large part of “being easy to reach” is to allow customers to reach you on their terms (not your own).
– For customers to reach you on their terms includes them being able to reach you whenever, wherever. This requires them being able to reach you via any channel, anytime.
– Providing a seamless omni-channel customer experience trumps providing a fragmented multi-channel customer experience. Providing a multi-channel customer experience is better than a one channel (usually the phone) customer experience.
– To provide a seamless omni-channel customer experience you need a mix of technologies and the right expertise.
– Majority of callers will not leave voicemail because they know (correctly or incorrectly) that no one will return their calls. It's better to respond to each and every incoming query.

– Do you have the technology to offer an omni-channel customer experience? i.e. Can a business lead find you on the web via a Google search, ask your business a question, get answers instantly, book your service, be able to self service their own account whenever they want to – whether it is on the web, phone, SMS, social media, WhatsApp etc? e.g. can your customer start a conversation on the phone, continue over text messages, then eventually resolve via email?
– Do you have the expertise to lead a team of such customer service representatives 24/7?
– Do you have the training staff to train a team of such customer service representatives?
– Do you have the budget to hire or retain a team of dedicated customer service representatives?
– Do you have the budget to win the talent wars? Does your budget include shadow resources / bench staff to support the inevitable talent churn / call-outs etc?

Depending on your budget, you can choose one of the following 3 options : Fully automated, Partly automated, No automation

Here, you use the latest advancements in Omni channel customer experience technologies. This is the technologically advanced version of what was known as interactive voice response (IVR). As technologies have advanced, this is no longer limited to voice alone.

The technological advancements in conversational artificial intelligence, natural language processing, contact center, video / telecommunications, text processing / insights, voice recognition / processing, image recognition / processing etc can all be applied to customer experience management.

Benefits
– In the long run this is the cheapest option.
– This is instantaneous and does not incur any wait times nor down times.
– The customer experience is standardized – i.e. your customer doesn’t have a different experience based on which customer service representative they connect with.
– Scaling your operations is limitless as compared to scaling using humans.
– By the nature of machine learning, this is a progressively trained process. Such progressive training is not easily possible to do with humans
– You get the benefits of the latest advancements in technologies, thereby reducing your total cost of ownership and return on investment even further.
– 80+% of your customer service contact sessions are resolved via this. Sometimes, this % is even higher (based on the nature of inbound contacts)

Downsides
– We’ve all experienced the frustrations of dealing with technology based customer service (i.e. customer service technologies not implemented well)
– It is not possible to resolve 100% of the inbound contacts. 
A human interaction is always more pleasing than an automated interaction.

– This is your “run of the mill” answering services where humans handle all calls.
– This is the most expensive option (obviously).
– Unless you have a large team of customer service representatives working 24/7, your customers will experience hold times.
– Scaling such operations is limited.
– Customer experience is not standardized. There are great and worse experiences based on which answering service representative is tending to the customer.

– With human augmented answering services, you use the latest advancements in Omni channel customer experience technologies. However, you use these technologies to reduce the workload of your customer service representatives. So, technology is “assistive“ in this case.
– The technologies assist in handling the bulk of the work and hand over to your customer service representatives as seamlessly as possible.
– You get the best of both worlds in such a scenario but it is also more expensive than a fully automated answering service.

A majority of small businesses that want to remain small businesses, offer a single channel of customer access. This could be the phone, chat, email, fax etc. A single channel strategy is simpler to implement.

Whichever channel you offer customer access on – whether it is the website, email, phone, fax, social media, chat etc, you simply build your answering services team around that.

Your customer base comprises of people that are OK with doing business (with you) only using that channel. Your customer base will also be OK with the number of hours you provide such access daily.

Don’t let any vendor tell you that it’s a wrong approach. It’s a lot simpler to implement, train for, excel at, etc. 

Example – single channel answering services

As an example – take a small doctor’s office. It has 1-2 practitioners, cannot see / treat more than 15-30 patients per day. They might support/allow customer access only over the phone Monday through Friday, 9 AM through 5 PM. That’s it.

Their patients simply have to accept the limitation.

This doctor’s office will miss out on patient segments that prefer to communicate over text messages (millennials). The doctors might be OK with that as they don’t have a millennial patient retention strategy.

The doctors might miss out on all customers that contacted them near or after hours. Usually, callers tend not to leave voicemails because they really don’t expect someone to call back from a doctor’s office. This office might be OK with missing out on potential patients as they might be making a decent living by seeing 15-20 patients per day.

At an average of 25 patients a day * avg of $100/patient * 0.3  (30 c per $ collected) = approximately $750 earnings. Split between 2 doctors, that’s about $375 / day / doctor. They might be perfectly OK with this.

Small businesses that do not want to remain small businesses, tend to offer a multi-channel customer access. This could include 2 or more channels like the phone, chat, email, fax etc.

A multi-channel strategy is a bit harder to implement. This business would need staff to monitor the various channels they are offering for customer access. However, the customer experience tends to be fragmented as there’s no clear correlation between the various channels of access. The answering service representatives do respond to customer touch points across various channels but it is not easy for them to get a complete view of the customer. This is because the customer’s conversations are fragmented across various channels.

This kind of business can attempt to provide a seamless customer experience across the channels, but it typically requires using various technologies that integrate and work together.

Example – multi-channel answering services

Taking the example of a medical office again, let’s say a new patient visit’s the doctor’s website and requests and appointment.
The answering service representative might email the patient back with a confirmation of their appointment.
Since the representative doesn’t have all the patient intake information, they might call the patient for the missing insurance information.
The patient misses the call and later on, calls the medical office back.
This time, the answering service representative picks up the phone and now the patient has to go over all their details, the appointment request all over again.
This is because the systems are not interlinked nor is there a 360 view of the patient.
This patient experience gets worse when they call about a billing issue or a medication prescription issue. Each time that the call or the email is not resolved in first contact, the patient has to explain themselves all over again.
Multi channel expands your business’ reach to customers by letting them contact you across various channels.
However, multi channel is not focused on the customer experience.
For that, you need to implement an Omni-channel answering service experience.

– I prefer implementing omni channel answering service solutions. Omni channel focuses on a seamless customer experience, rather than focusing just on increasing the number of contact channels offered to the customer.

Revisit the same medical office as mentioned before. Many if not most patients are already using Phones, Email, SMS, WhatsApp, Facebook, Google, Twitter, Website chat in their daily lives. If you have a well implemented Omni channel answering service, here’s a hypothetical patient experience you could wow you patient with.

Example – omni-channel answering services
– The patient is at work and decides she needs to see your doctor. The patient searches for doctors near her preferred location. The patient finds your business listed on Google. 
– The patient clicks on your business listing and reads the reviews. The patient now wants to make an appointment and clicks on Google “Book now” button.
– The patient is offered the online booking option that’s integrated with your EMR in real time. Google book now already provides the online booking system the basics about the patient (name, email etc).
– The patient proceeds to book and appointment with your doctor. 
– The online booking chatbot asks the patient a few questions about her insurance to figure out what the cost of care would be, for the patient. The patient answers those questions and the chatbot automatically runs an eligibility check, tells the patient that their insurance plan is accepted and the copay would be $25 for the visit.
– The patient gets an immediate confirmation of their appointment on the web. The answering service also gives them an option to get an appointment reminder. The patient shares their cell phone number with your answering service.
– Your outsourced answering service sends the patient an SMS with their appointment details.
– Next, the SMS chatbot asks the patient a bit more about their chief complaint / reason for the appointment request. The patient is at work and doesn’t have the time nor the privacy to describe their ailment. They pause their interaction with your business at that time.
– Later that afternoon, your answering service sends a reminder to the patient about the pending intake question. 
– The patient doesn’t want to type the entire complaint, so they just record their ailment using a “Speak” button and sends it to you. 
– The SMS chatbot receives this recording and uses medical transcription technology to decipher the chief complaint (ICD).
– The appointment is updated in the EMR with the correct chief complaint.
– 7 days before the appointment, your answering service sends the patient an email reminder.
– 3 days before the appointment, your answering service sends the patient a voice call reminder with an option to reschedule or cancel if needed. The patient decides to reschedule and presses “1” to be connected with your answering service.
– The outsourced answering service recognizes the number, asks a verification question to the patient and lets them through. The patient hears the various available appointment dates/times on the phone and decides that none of those dates work for them. The answering service also gives them an option to talk to a customer service representative.
– The patient chooses the “customer service representative” option and is transferred to the IVR. 
– The IVR tells the patient that the wait time is more than 5 mins for a voice call and that the patient can cut the line if they choose a live chat option. The patient opts for live chat and the IVR sends the patient an SMS with the link to chat to an agent.
– The patient is connected to an available agent, describes their urgency, and the agent gives them an appointment date/time that accommodates the patient’s urgency. 
– While chatting with the patient, the answering service representative finds out that the patient’s insurance requires a referral for this appointment. The agent reminds the patient about the referral requirement, asks them for their referring physician or the primary care provider’s contact information.
– The patient provides the information and the representative sends calls the other physician’s office while chatting with the patient. The other office picks up and now the answering service representative has the other office staff on the phone and the patient on the live chat.
– The other physician office’s front desk checks the EMR and sees that the patient does have an existing referral. The front desk faxes the outsourced answering service agent the referral. – The fax arrives and is automatically parsed to extract all relevant information (CCDA) of the patient that includes medical, medication, social histories, reason for referral etc. 
– The outsourced answering service agent accepts all the data suggestions that the fax transcription technology provides about the patient and pushes the data to the EMR. The patient is given all this information update and the interaction ends.
– On the day of the appointment the patient gets a text message and confirms that they are coming for the appointment. Later on the patient figures out that they are running late for their appointment. They call the text message number since the patient has not saved your medical office contact on their phone. 
– The answering  service recognizes this number and identifies the patient, then realizes that patient has an upcoming appointment in the next few hours, transfers the call to a live agent. The agent answers the call, takes the “running late” message from the patient and updates the EMR.

As you can tell, the patient experienced multiple channels that your doctor’s office offers. The patient never had to repeat their information nor the reason for their contact at any point, to any answering service representative at all. The interaction was seamless, with all the historical patient interaction data being passed on to the answering service.

This is harder to implement but reaps tremendous rewards – the least of them being terrific patient experience, and therefore, higher patient satisfaction.

If increased customer satisfaction is your success criteria, then you should know what your current customer satisfaction (CSAT) is.

– How are you going to measure customer satisfaction? Send text messages to every current customer?
– Are you going to measure customer satisfaction from every person that’s contacted your business? Will post call surveys be used to do so?
– How about NPS? Are you going to be measuring this as a NET PROMOTER SCORE (NPS)?
– What improvement are you looking for? 5%? 10%? 50%? Be reasonable with your expectations.

If you are considering increased leads as your measure of answering service success, do you have a system to measure the lead velocity now?

– For example, do you have a “last 12 months” view of incoming leads each month/week? 
– Do you measure the channels where those leads came from? 
– Do you have a way to attribute the source of those leads (e.g. newspaper, google ads, google searches etc)?

It’s not hard to find out this data (if you have some sort of CRM or spreadsheets). Figure out this information, consider that as the baseline, then set the ROI you are looking for. Again, be reasonable with your expectations.

Many businesses depend on answering services to increase the productivity of in office staff. Answering services help alleviate the burden of having to deal with incoming inquiries – while they are welcomed by all businesses, these incoming enquirers do tend to disrupt the office flow.

Your business might know instinctively that they need to reduce the disruptions. But, do you know how to measure the success of reduction in those disruptions? 

Do you have a way to measure the % of time your existing staff spends on tending to incoming calls/inquiries? If they were freed up from those duties, what would they do with that extra, free time?

Before you get started with an answering service solution, make sure you can quantify the impact of the solution. Unless you do this, you will end up considering an answering service as a cost center, not a profit center.

The cost of an answering service depends on various factors. Expect to pay anywhere between $0.61 to $1.36 per call subject to the service plan you subscribe to (data from this website).
Some answering services are just “take the call, pass on the message”. I personally do not see much value in those services.

However, if you prefer an answering service to do some work – e.g order taking or appointment setting, expect to pay more. It still ends up being cheaper to hire an outside answering services agency vs building the entire capability in house.

Cost is a significant factor to consider. While there are many providers out there, not all of them offer competitive pricing for their services. In this section, we’ll take a closer look at the monthly pricing plans offered by some of the best answering services on the market.

Free Trial Periods
Before committing to a monthly pay plan, many providers offer a free trial period to test their services (we offer a 1 month trial with no questions asked money back guarantee). This can be incredibly helpful in determining whether or not a particular provider is the right fit for your business needs. During these trial periods, you’ll have access to all of the features and benefits that come with each plan without having to pay anything upfront.

Monthly Pricing Plans
Monthly pricing plans vary depending on the provider and the level of service required. Some providers offer basic plans that include only essential features such as call forwarding and message taking. Other providers offer more comprehensive plans that include additional features like appointment scheduling and order processing.

It’s important to compare pricing and features of different providers to find the best fit for your business needs. Here are some examples of popular outsourced answering service providers and their monthly pricing plans:
AnswerConnect – AnswerConnect offers four different monthly pricing plans ranging from $239/month (for 100 minutes) up to $949/month (for 500 minutes). Their plans include features such as call forwarding, message taking, appointment scheduling, and order processing.
Ruby Receptionists – Ruby Receptionists offers three different monthly pricing plans ranging from $309/month (for 100 minutes) up to $899/month (for 500 minutes). Their plans include features such as live receptionist answering, message taking, call screening, appointment scheduling, and more.
PATLive – PATLive offers four different monthly pricing plans ranging from $149/month (for 100 minutes) up to $599/month (for 500 minutes). Their plans include features such as call forwarding, message taking, appointment scheduling, and order processing.
MAP Communications – MAP Communications offers four different monthly pricing plans ranging from $39/month (for 10 calls) up to $899/month (for 1,000 calls). Their plans include features such as live answering, message taking, call screening, appointment scheduling, and more.

It’s important to consider social proof. Social proof refers to the positive feedback and reviews that a particular provider has received from other businesses or customers.

Empathy – Do not look to hire folks that are just “take the message and pass it on”. An answering machine can do that. Look for an answering service team that responds efficiently and accurately to inbound enquiries. They should focus on explaining possible solutions, and ensuring that your clients feel supported and valued. Only teams with empathy can do that.
Long term commitment – If you are using humans as any part of your answering service, make sure that you sign a long term contract. No vendor wants to invest in learning their client’s business if the client is not willing to partner with them.
Industry focused – Providing answering services support for a lawyer’s office is very different from doing so for a medical office. Choose a team that has experience in your industry. Or, be willing to train them.
Training focused – An answering service team represents your company brand by answering questions, handling complaints, and troubleshooting problems with your products and services. The answering service you choose should give heavy emphasis on training.
Customer satisfaction focused, not volume focused – Your business gets good reviews when your answering service team listens to your clients to understand the reason for their call, address all questions or complaints, and provide an accurate and efficient response. This is not possible when you are measuring them on “how many inbound inquiries did you answer today”
Metrics driven – Look for answering services teams that strive to meet or exceed customer satisfaction metrics. More importantly, they should be using metrics to train themselves on doing better.
Supporting of digital channels – Your customers reach out to you via various digital channels. They don’t just pick up the phone. Look for answering services teams that help you respond to inbound customer and partner digital inquiries, using methods and verbiage defined by your team
Upsell and cross-sell – Look for answering services teams that identify up-sell opportunities where appropriate and attempt to cross-sell in cases a specific request cannot be met. That’s real business support.
Transparency – Look for answering services teams that escalate difficult and complex situations to their team leasers and your own team leaders as soon as they arise. If you punish them for making mistakes, they will start hiding their mistakes. Be a team – you don’t want any information, nor mistakes hidden.
Daily feedback – There’s an immense amount of business information your customers can provide you. Most businesses miss out on this valuable information. Try to find answering services companies that are always in “listening to the customer” mode. Your answering service should be providing your business leaders with important observations that they gather from our customer interactions. This helps you to improve your processes, products and/or service offerings.
Confidentiality / industry standards – It goes without saying that your answering service needs to maintain confidentiality of all company trade secrets and proprietary information. Don’t start without a mutual NDA.
Experience – Experience and expertise are two crucial factors to consider. A reliable provider should have extensive experience in the industry and a team of trained professionals who can handle calls efficiently and effectively. This ensures that your customers receive the best possible service, which is essential for maintaining customer satisfaction.
Expertise – Another important factor to consider is the level of expertise that the provider offers. They should be knowledgeable about your industry and understand the unique needs of your business. This allows them to provide tailored solutions that meet your specific requirements.
Customization – Every business has different needs it’s essential to choose a provider that offers customized solutions tailored to your business needs. This ensures that your customers receive personalized attention, which can help build stronger relationships with them. A good phone answering service provider will work with you closely to understand your business requirements and design a solution that meets those needs. They should be able to offer flexible plans that allow you to scale up or down as needed based on changes in call volume or other factors.
Technology – The use of advanced technology is another key factor when choosing an outsourced phone answering service provider. Look for providers who use call routing, voicemail, and call recording technologies as these features ensure prompt responses while providing valuable data insights. Call routing technology ensures that calls are directed quickly and accurately based on pre-set criteria such as location or departmental expertise within the company structure. Voicemail enables callers who reach out after hours or during peak periods when all agents are busy handling other calls to leave a message. Call recording technology provides valuable insights into how your customers interact with your business, allowing you to improve your customer service and overall business operations.
Availability – Finally, it’s essential to choose an outsourced phone answering service provider that is available 24/7. This ensures that you never miss an important call, even outside of regular business hours. A reliable provider should be able to handle calls promptly and efficiently at any time of the day or night. In addition to availability, consider the level of support provided by the provider. Do they offer round-the-clock technical support? Are there dedicated account managers assigned to your business? These are important questions to ask when choosing a phone answering service provider.

There are a lot of options available. However, not all answering services are created equal. Some are better suited for businesses with fluctuating call volumes, while others are better suited for businesses with consistently high call volumes.

Nisos Technologies
At Nisos Technologies, we have teams associated with each customer account – so, we don’t share the same agents across multiple customers. If you are looking for fluctuating call volumes and to pay per call, we would not be suitable for you.

Ruby
Ruby is a great choice for businesses with fluctuating call volumes because they offer flexible pricing plans that can accommodate changes in call volume. With Ruby, you only pay for the calls you receive, making it a cost-effective option for businesses that experience seasonal fluctuations in call volume.

For example, let’s say you run a landscaping business. During the spring and summer months, your phone is ringing off the hook with people looking to schedule appointments and get quotes on their landscaping projects. However, during the fall and winter months, your phone is much quieter as people aren’t thinking about landscaping as much.

With Ruby’s flexible pricing plans, you can adjust your plan based on your current call volume. This means that during the busy spring and summer months, you can increase your plan to ensure that all calls are answered promptly by friendly and professional receptionists. Then during the slower fall and winter months, you can decrease your plan to save money without sacrificing quality.

AnswerConnect
AnswerConnect is another top choice when it comes to outsourced answering services. They offer a full range of answering services including 24/7 availability and bilingual support. This makes them an excellent choice for businesses with consistently high call volumes that require around-the-clock coverage.

In addition to their comprehensive range of services, AnswerConnect also offers customizable call scripts and call routing options to ensure that every call is handled efficiently and effectively. This means that no matter what type of business you run or what industry you’re in, AnswerConnect can create a custom solution that meets your unique needs.
For example, let’s say you run a law firm. You receive a high volume of calls every day from clients and potential clients looking for legal advice or representation. With AnswerConnect, you can customize your call scripts to ensure that all callers are greeted professionally and directed to the appropriate person or department.

Abby
In addition to Ruby and AnswerConnect, Abby Connect is another option for businesses with high call volumes. They offer personalized call answering services with a focus on building relationships with customers. This means that their receptionists take the time to get to know your business and your customers so they can provide a more personalized experience.

Ultimately, the best outsourced answering service for your business will depend on your specific needs and budget. It’s important to carefully evaluate your options before making a decision.

When evaluating an answering service, there are several factors to consider:
Call volume: Does the answering service have experience handling calls at the volume you anticipate?
Availability: Is the answering service available 24/7? Do they offer bilingual support?
Customization: Can the answering service create custom call scripts and routing options?
Pricing: How does the pricing structure work? Are there any hidden fees?
By taking these factors into account, you can make an informed decision about which outsourced answering service is right for your business.

Outsourced answering services like Nisos Technologies turnkey call center can help you get more patient appointments. This requires you to increase patient access well beyond your office hours.

The healthcare industry is already struggling to hire and retain staff – do you have the organizational bandwidth to hire / train/ retrain / retain more staff? That’s where we can help you to increase patient access by answering all incoming patient queries from:
– Google My Business
– Facebook
– Website chat
– Telephone
– Text messages
– Emails
– Faxes
All the information is always available in your EMR, practice management system and our free medical CRM as well.

We become an extension of your front desk as “medical virtual receptionists”. Alternatively, we can handle this entirely from our turnkey callcenter services as well. We can handle all these outbound medical receptionist activities on your behalf.
– Patient recall
– Patient referrals (incoming and outgoing)
– Appointment scheduling / rescheduling / cancellations
– Appointment eligibility checks
– Appointment reminders, reactivations
– Demographics, insurance proofs (ID card, insurance cards)

Remote patient intake alone allowed us to save our customers almost 25 minutes per patient visit. By doing remote patient intake while the patients were at their homes, we get to connect with the patient and reduce no-shows tremendously, because the patient makes a personal connection with your medical practice. We encourage getting this as part of your medical answering services because this helps reduce the wait time and crowding in your waiting areas. This inevitably leads to higher patient reviews.
Our remote patient intake staff will handle the following and enter data into your EMR.
– Chief complaint
– History of present illness
– Social, Family, Medical history
– Medication history
– Medication reconciliation 

A medical BPO service or an outsourced medical answering service can handle any of the following:
– Manage all faxes (incoming and outgoing) using our inbound call center services related to
– Referrals
– Medical records
– Vendors
– Legal requests
– Prescriptions
– Managing prescription related calls and faxes
– Appoint patients not seen in 6 months
– Confirm prescriptions and if substitutes are allowed based on physician orders
– Send prescription via fax to pharmacies if they’re not enrolled in eRX
– Prior authorization requests for specific RX (ePAs)
– Handle all billing related tasks
– Calls with billing related queries
– Payer denials
– Prior authorizations
– Eligibility

Here's how Nisos Technologies does it. Other vendors might also have similar processes. Surgeons place surgery order on paper or by using our surgical scheduling application (mobile and web). Our outsourced scheduling team calls the patient. We handle everything from this point onwards.

– We handle all incoming and outgoing communications regarding surgeries – patients, vendors, care team, partners
– Our outsourced surgical scheduling team starts by entering paper surgery orders to our surgery scheduling system
– Prior authorizations related to surgery, laboratory, diagnostic procedures, transportation & medication orders
– Laboratory procedure appointments, reminders, report collections on behalf of patients
– Imaging / diagnostic procedure appointments, reminders, report collections on behalf of patients
– Medical clearance, COVID clearance appointments, reminders, report collections on behalf of patients 
– Medications orders, reminders, adherence confirmation on behalf of patients
– Transportation appointments, reminders on behalf of patients
– Patient reminders, status updates, queries
– Surgery deposit collections, patient signatures
– Coordination with ambulatory surgery centers and hospitals
– Post operative documentation gathering, post op instructions
– End to end surgery scheduling operations

This varies across vendors. Nisos Technologies team helps with the following:
Surgery scheduling based on surgery type, medical priorities, allergies, surgical privileges 
Surgeon preference cards maintenance
Patient’s signatures
Patient questionnaires preparation
Surgeon’s signatures
Eligibility and Prior authorizations
Patient payment collections 
Medical clearance appointment and report
Pre admission laboratory appointment and reports
Pre admission diagnostic appointment and reports
Preoperative RX order and adherence 
Preoperative diet/nutrition order and adherence
Transportation orders as needed
Preoperative appointment adherence 
Surgery appointment adherence
Medication history preparation
Specialty history preparation 
Allergies list preparation
Implants requisition preparation
COVID clearance appointment and report
Surgery packet preparation per surgeon per block date/time
Implant vendor representative communications
Surgical care team communications
Patient care team communications
Vendor team communications

Yes, it can. At Nisos Technologies, the Postoperative tasks we can handle include:
– Surgery operative note preparation
– Surgeon’s signature
– Postoperative laboratory tests appointment and reports
– Postoperative diagnostic tests appointment and reports
– Postoperative RX order and adherence 
– Postoperative diet/nutrition order and adherence 
– Postoperative appointment date and adherence
– Transition of care referrals appointment and reports
– Surgery co-management referral appointment and reports
– Recall no-shows and cancellations