67% of clients will likely cut ties with a practice due to bad experiences.
According to a Fibroblast survey on patient retention, 43% of practices lost at least 10% of revenue due to poor patient retention, with 19% losing 20% for the same reason.
Facilitating a consistent, positive customer service experience is crucial for retaining patients. Your front desk plays a vital role in the patient experience, but constant turnover and absenteeism hinder their potential to contribute to your practice’s success.
To solve this staffing problem, service providers have offered “remote receptionists” and “virtual receptionists” as potential solutions — but what is the difference between the two, and which one should you get?
Here’s what you need to know:
There are no differences between “remote receptionists” and “virtual receptionists.” Both terms refer to receptionists who cover the front desk remotely through a virtual setup enabled by hardware and software. WelcomeWare, for example, enables receptionists to livestream on kiosks through which they interact with patients.
Remote receptionists/virtual receptionists are highly capable of numerous functions and hold many advantages over traditional in-person receptionists.
Here are some of the benefits they have over in-person receptionists:
The popular notion of virtual receptionists is that they’re limited to specific functions like answering phone calls or responding to emails. On the contrary, with a remote front desk platform like WelcomeWare, virtual receptionists can perform all front desk responsibilities remotely.
Virtual receptionists can:
Typically, a receptionist can only cover one front desk at a time, which often comes with the risk of a disproportionate workload amongst receptionists across your practice.
For instance, a large clinic with a high patient volume will keep its receptionists busy accommodating multiple patients. On the other hand, in a smaller clinic with the same practice and experiencing a low patient volume, receptionists will have a significantly larger bandwidth.
Empowering your receptionists with remote flexibility allows them to cover multiple locations simultaneously. Besides ensuring continuous front desk coverage across your entire practice, this maximizes your receptionists’ ROI, ensuring they always have a manageable workload without falling into burnout.
Sudden absences can leave you scrambling to cover the front desk, as otherwise, your patients will be left unaccommodated when they enter the clinic, leading to lower patient satisfaction.
A single team of remote receptionists can not only cover multiple locations — they can also cover each other should a receptionist become unavailable.
This maintains patient satisfaction and boosts revenue as well via the following:
It takes 3-6 months to hire a receptionist. However, the average tenure of a receptionist lasts 6-12 months. This leads to significant expenses not only in searching for talent but also in incurring potential losses due to having an unsatisfactory patient experience.
Offering work-from-home flexibility to your receptionists significantly increases staff satisfaction and retention while minimizing the tedious, constant hiring and training process.
Additionally, improved staff retention and multiple location coverage enable you to reduce your headcount and reinvest your cost savings into your current staff. This further enhances their capabilities and increases the value they can bring to your practice.
Properly integrating a virtual front desk into your practice may seem challenging at first, but reaping the benefits of remote receptionists is straightforward with the proper steps.
To implement a remote front desk into your practice, you have to do the following:
Read this blog to learn more about what you need to look for in a virtual front desk platform!
Remote receptionists or virtual receptionists — whichever you prefer calling them — can elevate your practice significantly by facilitating a consistent experience where patients are never left hanging at the front desk. As long as you choose the right virtual front desk platform provider to enable remote reception, you’re well on your way to achieving greater success and growing your business in the healthcare space.
Explore WelcomeWare, the leading virtual front desk software and hardware platform for physical therapy practices! Discover how WelcomeWare’s video receptionist platform has enabled numerous organizations to utilize virtual video receptionists to improve the patient experience, streamline operations, and cut costs.
A study on the effect of the socioeconomic status of patients on clinic perceptions found that patients seen as having high socioeconomic status tend to receive preferential access to primary care than patients seen as having low socioeconomic status.
Some patients may find it challenging to keep up with their bills. Nevertheless, your practice must treat each patient with the same empathy and regard. This applies to every aspect of the patient experience, including check-in, care coordination, and appointment scheduling.
When patients feel accommodated regardless of their financial capabilities, they’re significantly more likely to return the favor by paying their responsibilities on time.
Clarifying your patients’ financial responsibility can substantially improve their satisfaction with your clinic. Regardless of the patient’s socioeconomic status, your practice must support them every step of the way, not only to ensure the security of your revenue cycle but also for the benefit of your patients.
Empower your receptionists with WelcomeWare, a video receptionist platform that enables virtual front desk reception for your clinic. Learn how WelcomeWare’s patient intake solutions can streamline operations, reduce costs, and improve your revenue cycle!
