Healthcare professionals and medical secretaries often contend with no-show patients. This poses a big problem because patients who miss their appointments literally affect a doctor’s timetable, slow down the entire medical billing process and also disrupts the regular influx of patients.

Every hospital, in fact, relies on appointment scheduling: many appointments mean major productivity, thus better profits.

But whenever a patient does not show up for his appointment, the administrative assistant has to call him insistently to find out whether he is simply late or if he wants to cancel his appointment and make a new one.

Now what if all patients conducted themselves that way? Certainly, a hospital will not survive with such negligent patients.

To remedy this, some healthcare professionals have no choice but to impose penalties on no-show patients. But of course, this radical move poses risks. Such a move can either teach patients to value the hard work of their healthcare provider and the office secretary or drive the patients away or make them look for a new and more understanding health clinic.

Are you willing to take that risk?

Now though, there is an effective and affordable solution to decrease the rate of patient no-shows and most healthcare professionals who took advantage of it are now profiting from this very useful and practical software.

The answer lies in a medical software system called backup medical secretary. This system allows its users to simplify their everyday tasks while at the same time providing patients with a set of practical, modern services like online patient registration and appointment scheduling, medical web forms, synchronization with mobile devices and a lot more.

The automatic medical assistant can call, text and mail patients to remind them of their nearing appointments. This is sure to be a great feature, considering that most people miss their appointments simply because they forget about them.

This system was made specifically with the best intentions of healthcare providers and medical receptionists in mind. Just imagine how stressful it can be for the office assistant to have tons of patients asking for the doctor or how long they would still have to wait until the doctor calls them, while answering phone calls and filling out dozens of papers.

Quite a few medical practitioners have to hire additional administrative assistants just to cover the demands of patients. As the practice grows, however, so does the patient count, and two or five front desk assistants might not be enough.

The automatic administrative secretary was practically created for the purpose of providing help. When a patient creates an appointment, the system routinely enters the appointment info into its database and conveys reminders whichever way the patient chooses – by phone, text message or e-mail.

On the whole, patients will be reminded of their upcoming appointments and the front desk secretary will focus on more useful tasks.

AssistMedic is a provider of backup administrative receptionist services to companies worldwide for several years. Check out their backup medical secretary that can schedule appointments over the phone.

Depending on whether your health center is said to be the best in town or it is about to take off, your patient-base may be more or less solid. In both cases, though, you will find that managing dozens of patients is no child’s play. In fact, long waits are sure to make everybody nervous, including your office secretary themselves who, on the contrary, should be calm, relaxed and kind all the time.

Let’s look closely on two specific situations. In the first example, your medical business is expanding and you count thousands of patients consulting in your medical office. It’s always busy in your facility, and your patients are satisfied. Now, you consider taking in another worthy colleague to help your current administrative receptionists answer the phone, create patient appointments and do all the things expected of an office assistant.

This extra hand is equivalent to another extra expense for your office. You will need to pay the new secretary a salary and more taxes for your company. With this comes the reality that you might end up hiring another additional receptionist when two is not enough to take care of your increasing number of patients.

In the end your office might end up looking like a call center. Imagine a day in your office where patients wait in line while your administrative assistants are busy accepting phone calls and attending the missed appointments schedules by the patient and even the doctors.

A busy call center-like atmosphere will not make your patients feel comfortable and the entire medical staff will probably feel under pressure too. Such discomfort may lead to a slow decrease in your patient base, as well as poor health-care. Before you risk losing all you have worked for, we suggest you think strategically in order to make your medical clinic more cost-effective, without compromising on health-care.

The automated administrative assistant, a medical software system designed to replace multiple receptionists, now makes things possible for you. There is no need to get rid of your current medical secretary, but with this system, you can avoid additional costs by utilizing the services offered by the office secretary.

An automated medical receptionist is an up to date appointment scheduler, SMS and email appointment reminders, automated phone caller, and customizable web forms all rolled into one. A health clinic website for your company is the only requirement you will need to get your automated office assistant work for you.

Current and potential patients can visit your website, read more about your services and design on the spot to sign up with your medical practice. They can do so real-time by filling out a custom web form. From there, they can even add an appointment, and later on edit or cancel the same. These are all done without leaving the comfort of their homes.

So doing, it will feel like the medical staff is at their disposal all day and night, which is sure to give a great advantage over your competitors.

With the help of the automated front desk receptionist, your medical front desk won’t be chaotic anymore. A single human medical receptionist is more than enough to handle the needs of your patients. Thanks to this medical software, your doctors will be more relaxed and at ease when dealing with your patients. Patients can never be more at eased in this scenario.

AssistMedic has been providing virtual medical secretary services to medical companies in USA and Canada for several years. Check out their automated office receptionist that provides email and SMS appointment reminder functions

A revolutionary health care reform program was recently launched by President Obama aiming to see most US citizens gain the right to be treated efficiently regardless of economic status. This reform involves merging of medicine and technology so that all medical practice will soon comply with precise standards.

At the forefront of the new bill is the aim to guarantee access to medical insurance for millions of Americans. Another facet of the new bill is to let investigators keep track of all data, payments and transactions to identify those medical offices that have failed to fall in line with the reform process. A plethora of penalties await those who do not comply with the technological solutions recommended by the health care reform program.

Hence, this is the perfect time to start anew.

In a recent report, Accenture says that nearly 60% of US small medical office not currently using an EMR system (electronic medical records) will switch to EMRs within a couple of years. Why wait a few years to switch to a paperless office? Act now.

Obviously you do not want to be left behind, because there are many reasons to make the switch.

* You will join Obama’s battle against expensive health care.

* You will not be penalized.

* You will save a lot of money by going paperless.

* You will relieve yourself, your office receptionist, and medical staff from the burden of secretarial tasks.

* There won’t be missing files and data lost once your medical records are computerized.

But that’s not all.

Because electronic medical records are not handwritten but saved on computers, medical secretaries and healthcare professionals will be less likely to make those mistakes that poor legibility may sometimes cause.

Each health center periodically updates the patient records. This is a time-consuming and boring task mandated by the fact that patient data changes. In most cases it takes the administrative assistant a few days to go through all the paper records.

EMRs on the other hand can be updated in a few clicks. These can even be exchanged with other health centers so that every doctor will be able to treat the patient to the best of his ability.

For those who wish to learn more about EMRs, here is some information you may find illuminating.

Electronic medical records also enable the doctor as well as the medical receptionist save, store, monitor, to use and retrieve a patient’s medical data easily. Unlike paper medical records, EMR’s do not need to be transferred “physically” from one place to another.

There are also statistics reports that show how computerized systems are far more efficient than competitors who still keep paper records of their patients.

Do not ignore the technological revolution taking place now. Electronic medical records have been officially recognized and widely approved as a big factor in improving the country’s health care system. Be part of the revolution.

AssistMedic is a provider of automatic medical secretary services to companies worldwide for several years. You may want to try their virtual medical receptionist that can remind patients of appointments