Most practices are unaware that, on average, up to 50 per cent of patients calling through first thing in the morning fail to get through, particularly on a Monday or any day after a public holiday.
The Patient Access Centre is able to significantly reduce contact issues using advanced telephony systems, including callback queues for low acuity matters. They also use a dedicated COVID-19 line for each practice to reduce the need for manual COVID-19 screening of every patient.
Telephone access in traditional general practices is often challenging, and even in practices with advanced telephone systems, a considerable proportion of patients phoning practices first thing in the morning fail to get through.
One of the simple system changes is to remove phones from the front desk in the reception area, so reception staff are focused on the people in the room and staff answering phones are focused on the caller. This also significantly removes the risk of a breach of patient privacy when customer calls are overheard.
Removing telephone calls from a practice reception has a huge impact on the quality of service provided to the patient at the desk and receptionists report a much calmer working environment not having to multi-task between call handling and focusing on the person standing with them at the front desk.
Pinnacle decided to centralise the telephone-answering service for its practices and more than 120,000 patients are served by their Patient Access Centre (PAC) based in Hamilton.
This service has significantly reduced call waiting time for patients.
The PAC team work as a virtual extended team. The PAC team manages all phone calls, creates lists for triage call backs, books appointments, and coordinates requests for repeat prescriptions, recalls and reminders. Any patient requiring clinical advice is transferred to the practice team.
The PAC team ensure more people are available to take calls at times of peak demand. In addition to freeing up practice administration time – 85 per cent of calls received are managed by PAC without the need to transfer to the practice. PAC significantly reduces the number of phone calls coming into nurses, freeing them up to provide more direct patient care. This lets them be more proactive in monitoring and managing chronic conditions and running education programmes.
PAC is available by arrangment to assist with practice outbound campaigns. PAC also offers administration services to our practices, assisting with accounts/credit and recalls for immunisations, smears and patient history.
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