With cold and flu season upon us, the hours before 9 a.m. and after 5 p.m. can be an incredibly stressful time frame for parents. This is especially true when sick kids wake them up in the middle of the night, and they’re unsure if it’s OK to wait until your pediatric office opens in the morning. Parents resort to checking Dr. Google for recommendations. Unfortunately, the internet often highlights worst-case scenarios, which only fuel parental anxiety and increase the likelihood that parents will take their child to the emergency room.

However, ER trips mean patients are bypassing you, their primary doctor, leading to an increase in patient and healthcare costs while also lessening your practice’s revenue. In truth, most ER visits could be avoided with appropriate medical guidance. Anytime Pediatrics has a solution that will foster your connection to parents and keep your patients out of the emergency rooms: Anytime After Hours.

Since 2021, Anytime After Hours, our after-hours nurse triage platform, has since been helping pediatric practices streamline processes for after-hour calls and reducing unnecessary emergency room visits. It’s clear that employing a full-service after-hours service offers your patients the medical guidance they need when your office is closed. But Anytime After Hours also improves your bottom line! In this blog, we’re exploring how using an after-hours system avoids revenue loss. Let’s dive in!

How Does Using Anytime After-Hours Prevent Revenue Loss?

Over the last year, Anytime After Hours has triaged more than 57,200 encounters for more than 100 pediatric practices, with 83 percent of those calls handled by triage nurses. On average, an after-hours program receives 21 calls in a 31-day period.

When you rely on our after-hours program, the triage nurse can schedule patients, if medically appropriate, for next-day follow-up visits in your pediatric office. In doing so, your clinic is seeing more patients and, therefore, bringing in more revenue. In addition, your patients are spending less time in the emergency room, reducing their out-of-pocket healthcare costs. What does all of this mean for your bottom line? Let’s break it down.

Income

• 21 calls per month
• 2 calls turned into office visits
• $150 per visit
• $630 in monthly revenue

Expenses

• 21 calls per month
• $24 per call
• $504 fee for after-hours nurse triage

Profit Margin: $126 per month

When you implement Anytime After-Hours, your monthly return on investment has the potential to be 125 percent. Plus, you’re never sacrificing high-quality care because your young patients are still receiving appropriate medical guidance and next-day follow-up.

In short, Anytime After Hours “covers its cost” by:

• Keeping patients out of urgent care and in your practice
• Improving physician quality of life by reducing physician workload
• Allowing practice growth through convenience and technology that patients want
• Connecting patients to their medical home and your practice
• Providing parental peace of mind and extra care when your office is closed
• Leaning into Anytime’s qualified triage nurses instead of hiring
• Reducing out-of-pocket expenses for families
• Decreasing the need for holiday coverage
• Supporting compliance efforts for telehealth

What Does Anytime After-Hours Offer?

With Anytime After Hours, families talk to a live, highly qualified, medical professional. Our after-hours platform is staffed by experienced emergency room or pediatric triage nurses who follow Barton-Schmitt Protocols. In most cases, families will get reassurance that everything is OK. They will also receive reliable treatment options that provide relief for their child’s symptoms and, most importantly, a next-day follow-up with the pediatrician.

All call information feeds into your practice portal with call summary, triage notes, and dispositions being downloaded into your electronic medical record, facilitating continuity of care. If necessary, patients can be immediately routed to the on-call doctor and only in rare cases or true emergencies will the triage nurse recommend the emergency room. Of the 57,200 encounters in the past year, only 11 percent were referred to the on-call physician and a mere 6 percent were sent to the emergency room.

Translation services are even available when needed. You have control over your on-call schedule because Anytime Pediatrics offers configurable office protocols to meet each individual practice’s needs. Our nurses guide patients to the best point of care so they are never left without next steps and follow-up recommendations. After-hours nurse triage offers thorough assessments and recommendations, keeping your patients in their medical home.

How Do I Implement Anytime After-Hours into My Pediatric Practice?

Anytime Pediatrics has streamlined the process for implementing our after-hours platform into your practice. To register for virtual nurse triage, simply complete the onboarding documents. You’ll provide practice demographics and contact information for each provider. We will have you confirm the hours you need the nurse-triage service and the phone numbers to provide to the exchange. Coverage can include nights and early mornings, holidays, weekends, meeting times, lunch hours, and more.

Once we receive your onboarding paperwork, we will coordinate:

• Onboarding meeting, including training and Q&A
• New nurse triage after-hours phone number provided for call forwarding
• Marketing and promotional materials, including social media posts, flyers, and landing pages

Once the practice platform is set up and the portal goes live, nurses will be available to take calls on behalf of your practice within 1-2 weeks. We recommend letting your patients know during office visits or through staff telephone calls that this service is available to them when your office is closed, and our nurses will take it from there!

Virtual nurse triage prevents revenue loss while also keeping your patients in their medical home. After-hours care also reduces long wait times and high costs of unnecessary emergency room visits, and your patients will have better health outcomes.

To request a consultation for your practice, contact us today!