Taking Phone Messages the Right Way

Hello, my name is Tina Del Buono and welcome to today’s One Minute Practice Management tip. You know, taking messages is a very important task that we do in our practices every single day. But how often have you received a message and had to go to the person who took it and ask, “what is this about?” Well, that shouldn’t happen, so I am going to share a few key tips on taking messages in the practice.

First of all, you want to get the person’s name and their business name. Please ask for the spelling so you have it correctly. Put down the date, the time, and include the year if it is a patient. This is done for legal reasons.  Then you want to make sure you get the phone number – repeat it back so that you know you have the correct phone number. And then ask for the purpose of the call.  Have it written clearly and stated clearly so that the person who’s reading it, understands what the reason for the call was. When you are finished, you want to give the person who’s calling an estimated time of when it should be delivered. Then you want to repeat back that message so that they know you got the message clearly. Then deliver it according to your office protocols. You’ll want to whether this message is urgent, or non-urgent so that you can follow the protocol that goes with that delivery. And then, if necessary, follow up to make sure that if it was something that was important, that the person who got the message, did indeed see it and did follow up with it.