The need for telehealth appointments in pediatric practices has skyrocketed since the pandemic began in 2020. Parents are continuing to opt for children to be seen in a virtual setting because of various concerns, including the potential for exposure to COVID-19.
When youngsters have worrisome symptoms in the evenings or on weekends, their caregivers call after-hours services to discuss their concerns. This activates the medical exchange, which gives parents the opportunity to talk with a licensed professional. In this case, they not only experience improved patient outcomes but also an increase in patient satisfaction.
Anytime Pediatrics is taking it one step further and providing your practice with virtual care solutions that have multiple patient routing options, allowing for time-saving, customizable workflows. But what are the advantages of this service? Keep reading to learn about five benefits of patient routing options.
Patient Routing Builds Relationships
Anytime Pediatrics is committed to helping your practice connect and build relationships within your community. Our after-hours pediatric care has the flexibility to connect you with individual pediatricians, pediatric group practices, pediatric urgent care centers, and children’s hospitals of your choosing.
Our after-hours solution also utilizes a nurse triage system to help route your patients who are calling after business hours to you, or a practice or partner of your choice. Patients may also be offered the option to schedule a next day in-person or virtual visit at your office. This allows you to create a network of pediatric care centered around the patient.
Patient Routing Improves the Patient Experience
Using Anytime After Hours service, all after-hours pediatric calls will go directly to a registered nurse. Our nurses have at least five years of emergency room and telephone triage experience and follow Schmitt-Thompson Protocols, so you can be confident that your patients are receiving medically appropriate recommendations.
There may be times of high call volumes, and Anytime Pediatrics increases coverage during these periods. In this instance, the caller will be routed to voicemail and will then receive a return call from the nurse when they become available.
Patient Routing Improves Your Bottom Line
As a pediatric practice owner or manager, you know financial health is important to a thriving business. Patient routing improves your return on investment. Costly emergency department visits rates are reduced with our after-hours nurse triage service. Our emergency room referral rate is 5 percent compared to an average of 14 percent when using a national call center. Moreover, your practice does not need additional medical answering services; we cover this service as well.
Anytime Pediatrics gives you complete control and options on how you want to provide telemedicine. You choose the hours, how to schedule, and what types of visits you’ll provide through telehealth.
Patient Routing is Compatible with Your Scheduling Strategies
The after-hours nurse triage system is activated when a parent or caretaker calls your practice with a concern about an ill child. Much like a typical medical exchange, upon calling your practice, they will be connected to after-hours nurse triage. The licensed clinician will then discuss their concerns and provide expert medical advice.
Since our after-hours triage nurses have emergency room and telephone triage experience, including knowledge of Schmitt-Thompson Protocols, they know exactly how to route your patients to the appropriate clinician. At this point, patients will be invited to either schedule a same- or next-day visit with a pediatric clinician. If one of your pediatricians is not available, families will be routed to an on-call partner. Lastly, if the caller is having a medical emergency, they will be referred to an urgent care center or emergency room.
Patient Routing Delivers Data Directly to Your Dashboard
When you use virtual care solutions from Anytime Pediatrics, you have access to your performance dashboard. Its capabilities allow you to analyze data and determine what’s working — and what’s not working — within your practice. You can review how after-hours care is benefitting your practice and maximizing your time management.
You can get as granular as you like with the data from your dashboard. We recommend using the PDSA cycle for innovation and quality improvement, which has the following steps.
- Plan: Set improvement goals.
- Do: Carry out that plan.
- Study: Analyze the results.
- Act: Adopt based on feedback.
These strategies will help you see what’s beneficial to your practice and areas where you can improve.
The virtual care solutions from Anytime Pediatrics help your practice build relationships in your local community while providing cost-effective, outstanding patient care to those you serve. For more information, contact us today!
