Medical Practices and VoIP

VoIP phone systems provide Medical Practices with some very attractive features that are not possible within traditional voice switches. While VoIP systems benefit many organizations, Medical Practices are one business where there are specific VoIP applications available that provide immediate and tangible benefit. Medical Practices have always been a labor intensive operation due to the daily requirements involved in managing appointments and staff. With the integration of data into the voice environment, we are able to automate many daily operations functions and reduce staff requirements while maintaining the privacy of its medical staffs.

One new feature available with VoIP systems that will immediate impact doctors and their staff is the ability to access the practice phone system remotely via cellphone and personal computer system. While Cellphones have increased the reach that medical practices have to stay in contact with their doctors and on-call personnel, one issue that has caused doctors concern is that when calls are returned via personal cellphones, the doctors’ cellphone number can be captured by patients and then used for future direct calls. This can be a major invasion of personal time and privacy. However with a VoIP system, Cellphone calls are routed through the office system, thus displaying the office line number. This allows medical personal and their staff to maintain their privacy, while also increasing their availability to address patient needs.

An additional benefit that specifically improves daily operations and reduces support costs is the integration of texting and automated calling into the appointment management process. VoIP systems are able to integrate with scheduling programs to send out automated texts and phone calls to remind patients of upcoming appointments and to gather confirmations (and cancellations). This provides the staff additional capacity to handle other responsibilities as opposed to personally contacting each patient to confirm appointments. This is just one of the features available to Medical Practices that can reduce daily operations responsibilities and costs.

These are two features that will benefit all medical practices and help to automate a previously labor intensive environment. As you can see, the deployment of a VoIP system provides specific, tangible solutions. Medical Practices will realize an immediate reduction in operations requirements and potential cost savings by reducing staffing requirements or providing staff capacity to perform other tasks typically not addressed due to daily operations requirements. The practice should also realize IT cost savings due to the elimination of dedicated voice facilities. VoIP systems can provide medical practices as much as a 40% reduction in monthly recurring costs with a return on investment of 12 to 15 months. This is especially beneficial to medical practices that are expanding to multiple locations or merging with other practices. VoIP systems allow these practices to utilize the Internet to centralize their Voice system in one location and to connect to secondary locations via the Internet.

Michael Skorb
Managing Partner