Pharmacies have come a long way from being Mom and Pop specialty stores. Today’s pharmacies are now often located within retail stores, which allows consumers a one-stop shopping experience for prescriptions, groceries, and household items. However, pharmacy staff remains as compact as ever, with often no more than two pharmacists on-call per shift. That said, it’s not unusual for pharmacies to receive hundreds of calls per day from doctors and patients. How can a pharmacy, even one backed by an impressive retailer, cope with rapidly incoming calls? The answer is simple: a pharmacy answering service. Pharmacy answering services offer a number of solutions for retail pharmacists.
The most prominent are the day-to-day services easily outsourced to telephone support professionals. When patients or doctors call into the pharmacy for any reason, they’re greeted by live operators who assist them in reaching the proper person or in leaving a message. Since patients and doctors often call in for routine reasons, pharmacy answering service operators generally are able to fulfill their needs. Live operators help patients refill prescriptions, change mail order addresses, and receive scheduled pharmacy hours. They also can answer any questions patients have about their medications, including dosage directions, time available for pick up, and location of mailed prescriptions. Medical practitioners can similarly use pharmacy answering services: doctors can call in patient prescriptions and live operators will forward the prescription, along with the license and DEA number. While most answering services are secure, it is important to guarantee that your vendor clearly outlines its HIPAA compliance procedures.
Pharmacy support vendors also provide a way for retailers to assist patients. By assigning a toll-free number to a retail pharmacy chain, pharmacy patients can easily dial to receive a live operator to locate the closest pharmacy to them. Live operators can give consumers directions (both driving and mass transit), show pharmacy hours, find pharmacies with flu shots, and locate pharmacies with walk-in clinic care. What’s more is that most of these companies offer these services in both Spanish to English, allowing you to serve all of your consumers.
More people that ever can stop at a pharmacy retail store to simultaneously pick up prescriptions, go grocery shopping, and pick up household items. Pharmacy answering services power this change, allowing pharmacists to efficiently serve your patients 24 hours a day.