IndustryMedical, Dental and Vet
Your front desk is talking to somebody who is standing right there.
Meanwhile four people are calling to book, reschedule, or ask whether the results came back. Each call that rings out can be an appointment that did not get made. We build the queue so those calls survive the moment your desk is busy, at $30 per simultaneous call a month.
§What usually starts this
Practices do not change phone systems for fun. Something starts it.
Which one brought you here?
Calls are ringing out
The front desk is checking somebody in, and the second and third calls go to voicemail, or nowhere.
Nobody can say how many
You suspect you are missing calls, but the current system cannot tell you when, or how many.
On call is a weekly chore
Somebody changes the after hours routing by hand every time the rotation changes.
Someone asked about recordings
Voicemail lands in a shared inbox, and nobody is sure where call audio is kept or who can hear it.
A second location
You are opening or joining another clinic, and nobody wants two phone systems and two bills.
§The front desk
The phone competes with the person in front of you.
A practice does not lose calls because nobody cares. It loses them because the person answering the phone is also checking somebody in, taking a payment, and finding a chart.
So the question is not whether the phone rings. It is what happens to the second and third call while the first one is being handled by someone who is also doing something else.
A queue, not a mailbox. Callers wait in line instead of dropping into voicemail, and anyone who would rather not wait can ask for a callback.
More hands on the phone. A second and third person can pick up from wherever they are, including the back office, and see that a call is waiting before it rings out.
Routing by reason. A booking call, a prescription question and a sales rep do not need to land in the same place.
A report on missed calls. Calls that rang out or were abandoned, by hour. Sometimes the problem turns out to be one hour of one day, which is a staffing decision rather than a phone system decision. We would rather you know that than buy more phone.
§Patient information
Compliance and Data Security Settings with SPARK VoIP
Voicemail to email means audio leaves the phone system and lands in your mail system. Call recording means conversations about patients are stored somewhere. Both are useful, and both are decisions your practice has to make deliberately.
Tell us your policy and we will configure the system to it, then put what we configured in writing.
Recording. Off entirely, on only for specific numbers, or on per queue.
Voicemail. Emailed with the audio attached, or kept in the phone system and not emailed at all.
Business Associate Agreements. If your practice needs one from its phone vendor, raise it on the first call.
What we will not do. Put a compliance badge on a web page. Compliance is a property of your practice and your policies, not something a phone vendor can hand you with a subscription.
§After hours
Somebody has to be reachable, and it should not be the same person every week.
Whoever is on call answers the practice line on the 3CX app on their mobile, with the practice number showing, not their personal one.
A rotation, not a rebuild. After hours calls follow the on call schedule, so the clinician on call changes without anyone rebuilding the phone tree.
Two different paths. An emergency path, and a separate “please call me back Monday” path, because those callers need different things.
Your answering service. It stays in the path. We route to it after hours or on overflow, whichever you prefer.
Veterinary practices. Usually need more of this than anyone. Emergencies do not wait, the after hours referral has to be stated clearly, and the recorded message has to be right, because it is doing real work at two in the morning.
§More than one site
Two clinics, one phone system.
Each location keeps its own number and hours. Calls roll between sites when one is short. A patient calling the location that is closed can be answered by the one that is open, instead of hearing a recording.
Central scheduling, if you have it, sits on the same system and can answer for any location.
§The price
Priced by calls at once. Licensed for your phones.
The monthly bill is $30 per simultaneous call, which is the same as $30 per SIP trunk. The 3CX license is annual and sold separately, and we sell and invoice it. The license has to cover both your simultaneous calls and your extensions, so more phones can mean a bigger license tier. A practice usually has more phones than calls in progress, so we can often run fewer trunks than the license size.
Worked example: a four operatory dental practice with two front desk, four chairside, a hygienist, an office manager and the doctors is around 15 to 20 extensions. Calls and extensions both fit an 8 SC license, so that practice is eight trunks: $240 a month, plus an 8 SC license, annual. Adding phones later is fine. The price changes only if that pushes the license into a bigger tier.
A group with several sites runs one system with one shared pool of calls, instead of a system and a bill for each site.
§When something breaks
What happens on a bad day, said plainly.
If your practice loses internet or power. The phone system is not in your building, so it keeps running. Your staff keep working on their mobile phones with the 3CX app.
Our side. The hosted system runs at 99.9 percent uptime.
Who you get. A real person answers. If they can fix it on the call, they do. If not, they open a ticket and tell you what happens next. Tickets by phone, email or text. After hours, call (918) 608-8888 for 24 hour emergency support.
911. Direct 911 dialing and the location dispatch sees are set up for each site during the install, and we put what the system does in writing. To check it, dial 933, which works on any system. We advise doing that once a quarter.
§Changing systems
Your old system stays live until your numbers have landed.
We look at what you have, design the replacement in writing, then build it and port your numbers while your current phones keep working. Standard remote install is free. Custom work, such as a connection to your practice management software, is $125 an hour and quoted before it starts.
§Questions
What people ask before they call.
Can we keep our number?
Yes. We port every number you keep, and your old system stays live until they have landed. Your listings and your cards do not change.
Can we turn recording off?
Yes. Entirely, or per number, or per queue.
Can the back office answer when the front is swamped?
Yes, and they can see that a call is waiting before it rings out.
What about faxes?
Still a real question in this industry. Fax is not included in the monthly rate. Tell us what you send and receive and we will tell you the options honestly, including keeping a line exactly as it is.
Does the phone system talk to our practice management software?
Depends entirely on which one. Tell us the name on the call. We will say yes, no, or “with custom work at $125 an hour”, quoted before it starts. We will not guess.
Can the on call clinician answer from their mobile?
Yes. With the 3CX app they answer their office extension, and callers see the practice number, not a personal one.
What happens if our internet or power goes out?
The phone system is not in your building, so it keeps running. Your staff keep working on their mobile phones with the 3CX app.
Are we locked in?
Month to month on our side. The 3CX license is annual.
Twenty minutes, and a headcount.
Tell us how many people you have, how many phones, how many locations, which numbers you need to keep, and what happens at five. You will get your size, your monthly rate and your license line on that call.
Or call (888) 223-1094