The Challenge

OPRM’s two doctors, five nurse practitioners, and 20 administrative staff serve patients from office locations in Arlington, Fort Worth and Cleburne. To meet patient needs, each doctor sees up to 20 patients a day while clinic staff field calls from current and prospective patients during business hours.

Staff needed to remain accessible at the same number regardless of their office location, so they carried their IP desk phones from office to office. Mobile workers and high call volumes taxed the company’s team and phone system, which led to routing mistakes, misplaced calls and unanswered voicemails. As missteps occurred, OPRM could not determine where the bottleneck or error occurred, making it impossible to address and improve the problem.

OPRM’s legacy phone system simply could not keep up with the demands of a modern health care practice. The problem had become so severe that Practice Manager Paige Rickman decided finding a better medical office phone system was her No. 1 priority.

Important considerations for integrated business communications included:

• Portability/Mobility – OPRM’s doctors and staff rotate locations and need to be easily accessible.
• Continuity – To avoid missing patient calls, the practice’s phone system must stay up and running even when the internet connection is down.
• Ease-of-Use – A new communications system must be easy to use since the clinics’ fast-paced environment doesn’t allow time for staff to learn a complex system.
• Scalability – Adding and deleting users must be simple to manage.

The Solution

Rickman expressed her frustration with OPRM’s medical office phone system to a practice consultant, who referred her to Tracy Carlton at SiriusTEK, a Broadvoice partner with experience improving efficiencies for health care companies.

“When I explained the issues that we were having and how busy our practice was and how important phone systems are, [Tracy] said [Broadvoice] is the company for you because of all of these capabilities that they have,” Rickman said.

Broadvoice’s b-hive platform was a great fit for OPRM’s requirements, particularly the Hot Desking function, which enables each employee’s extension to follow them to any device at any location. Instead of carrying their IP desk phones, workers could simply dial a code to bring the extension to the device.

“With all of the virtual appointments that are going on and people needing to work remotely on occasion, it was just the perfect match for what we needed,” said Rickman.

After one demo, Rickman and the OPRM doctors decided the Broadvoice b-hive platform was the way to go. The award-winning solution integrates powerful cloud PBX, UC, collaboration, and virtual call center features into one platform connected to Broadvoice’s secure, redundant network and hosting infrastructure.

The Benefits

While Hot Desking sealed the deal, b-hive also met OPRM’s additional requirements.

• Portability/Mobility – Hot Desking enabled workers to move from office to office and take their numbers with them. Additionally, hot desking allows users’ phones to show OPRM’s caller ID, solving the problem of using personal devices with blocked caller ID when working remotely. With the uptick in spam calls, patients rarely answered their calls.
• Continuity – With b-hive, OPRM experienced improved continuity of service. Even when the office internet was down, employees could use the b-hive app on their mobile phones without missing a patient call.
• Ease-of-Use – In addition to the product’s ease of use, the Broadvoice b-hive portal is simple and effective. Rickman can change the phone tree or reassign extensions as needed with the click of a button instead of waiting days to resolve a support ticket as with her previous vendor.
• Scalability – Similarly, Rickman can add and reassign users as needed. “The coolest thing is the Portal,” she said. “If there’s a change in employment or anything like that, I can easily go in and update where I want the calls to be forwarded or who’s assigned to that extension, and it doesn’t turn into this huge IT ticket. I can do it myself and it’s very self-explanatory.”
• Service and Support – Rickman is pleased with the level of service and support OPRM has experienced with Broadvoice customer support backed by SiriusTEK’s local support.

The Results

Rickman says Broadvoice’s b-hive and the mobile app are purpose-built to meet the needs of OPRM’s medical practice.

“I don’t know if other offices are suffering like how we were suffering, but this has been night and day, literally,” said Rickman. “You don’t think a change in your phone system will make this big of a difference, but it truly does.”

The results are evident. Since adopting Broadvoice b-hive platform, Rickman reports that OPRM’s communications have vastly improved internally and externally.

Hot Desking enables employees to reach each other consistently and ensures all patient calls are answered. OPRM’s b-hive system tracked a 95% answer rate, which Rickman says is exceptional for a busy, multi-site medical practice.

Hot Desking also enables OPRM to save money by using fewer desk phones at each office. “[Hot Desking] literally cut our bill in more than half,” said Rickman. “We’re paying less for way more services and capabilities.”

Additionally, Rickman says the Broadvoice b-hive platform has “improved our patient satisfaction as well. Nothing is getting lost anymore.”

Call tracking enables Rickman to identify communications breakdowns and address them in real-time. It helps to identify staff training opportunities as well.

“This is how the phone systems should be at medical practices. The goal is to make it look seamless for the patients and for the physicians, so it doesn’t affect them at all,” said Rickman. “Switching over to Broadvoice has really helped us do that, and I recommend it to everybody.”

Do your employees struggle with remaining accessible while working remotely or at different locations? Contact us for demo to learn how Broadvoice b-hive can make your internal and external communications happen anytime, anywhere.