1. New treatment options. Are you offering new services to patients? Everybody wants to know the latest and greatest — especially when it costs less, saves time or improves a patient’s level of comfort. Begin introducing new treatments through on-hold messaging and expect increased interest from your patients.
2. Health information. On-hold time is an excellent opportunity to provide information about health topics related to your specialty. This information often answers the very question a patient contacted you to ask. On-hold health information can reduce the wait for all callers and minimize the incoming questions that are asked of your staff.
3. Tips for healthy living. Your practice knows best when it comes to maintaining patients’ health. Do you have any tips to improve patient safety? Callers always enjoy hearing some free advice from the experts.
4. Doctor and staff bios. Biographical information is an effective way to strengthen the trust between practices and patients. Doctors and staff members have worked hard to get to where they are. It’s OK to brag a little. After hearing some of the qualifications and background of the practice, patients will have further assurance that they’re in good hands.
5. Community involvement. Does your practice perform any charity work? Maybe you sponsor a local school or youth sports team. While callers are on-hold, you have an ideal forum to show that you don’t only care for them but also for the community as a whole.
6. Policies and procedures. There are undoubtedly questions that callers ask your staff time and time again. On-hold messaging can answer those questions before patients ever ask them. Appointment scheduling, insurance procedures, medication refills and more can all be addressed while callers are waiting to speak with your practice. Include this information in your on-hold messaging and save time for both your staff and patients.
7. Office information. As your practice grows and adapts to patients’ needs, there’s a good chance that you will adjust office hours, open new locations or make other office changes. On-hold messaging provides an effective forum to notify and remind callers of these changes.
8. Website promotion. Many practices maintain a website as a marketing and informational tool. Promoting your practice’s website through on-hold messaging is an ideal way to drive more online traffic. Many websites offer information to answer patient questions. Get patients to visit your website and you may greatly reduce inbound calls.
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