He was paying about $300 a month for an answering service; now he’s paying $50 a month.
“It eliminates the middle man so I get the messages directly,” he says. “So I can either respond to it immediately if I choose to, or I can just take a message and respond later on. Everything gets recorded so I can go back and review stuff.”
Dr. Salas adds, “The most important thing for me is making sure I get everything.”
So far, the system has worked well—although he hasn’t yet tried the feature that automatically makes the patient information sheet available when they call, or the transcription service.
“There is that time period where [patients] might have to wait for me to listen to the message and pick up the call, but the gratification there is they get to talk to me immediately versus leaving a message and waiting for me to call them back,” Dr. Salas says. “I think patients like it …. They do get somebody right away as opposed to where they might call an answering service and they might be on hold for a long time then leave a message, then wait for me to call them back.” the rheumatologist
Thomas Collins is a freelance medical writer based in Florida.
