Teletriage and Teleadvice

Some client communication platform providers offer third-party general advice to your clients. This can be during normal business hours or after hours to help clients avoid unnecessary visits to the emergency clinic and instead redirect them to your practice for an evaluation. While this does add to the cost of the platform, it may be a valuable service that benefits clients, patients, and practices.

TIP: Ask for a trial period for the technology you are considering. Most vendors will be happy to let you try the system before committing to buy.

Education and Marketing Support

Providers may offer free flyers, calendared social media posts, and educational and promotional support. They may also offer training and materials for team members as well as community educational items at little or no cost. Ask whether you can add your practice name or logo to educational websites or materials.

Evaluation Tools

• In addition to your own metrics, you may be able to take advantage of the data analysis tools that some technology providers offer to ensure you and your team are thoughtfully and appropriately utilizing the technology and tracking performance, including patient outcomes, client satisfaction, and financial return on investment.
• A good question to ask potential technology providers is how they measure their own accuracy and success and how they use that information to improve their products.

Continuing Support

• Ask providers about their customer service support:
  • Will representatives be available to you during implementation and for ongoing support? You want to make sure if you encounter a problem, they are committed to helping fix it.
  • Ask how often software updates happen and how they ensure minimal disruptions in service when updates are deployed.

Click here for Frequently Asked Questions about Platforms.