Veracity Established Patient Calls

Repeat callers fill the day

Much of a practice's phone traffic comes from patients it already knows. They call to book the next visit, move an appointment, ask about a refill, check on a form, question a bill or tell the nurse how a new medication is going. None of these calls is hard. Together, they are what keeps the front desk from finishing anything.

Established patients also expect to be recognized. They have been coming for years and do not want to explain themselves from scratch every time they call.

Identifying the patient and the request

Katie begins by asking who the patient is, using the identifiers your practice relies on, such as name and date of birth, and then asks what they need. The summary carries both, so your staff can find the chart in Veracity straight away and act without a second call.

Getting identification right at the start helps prevent a classic follow-up error in a busy practice: acting on the wrong chart because two patients share a name.

• Name, date of birth and callback number
• Their usual provider and location
• What they need, in a sentence
• Anything that has changed, such as a new address, phone number or insurance plan

Familiar requests, captured the same way

Established patients make the same kinds of requests again and again, which is exactly why consistency matters. A refill request arrives with the pharmacy and remaining supply every time, a reschedule with the new days that work, a form request with its deadline. Your staff stop chasing the missing detail.

Consistency also means a patient who calls on a Saturday gets the same handling from Annie that they would get from Katie on a weekday.

Continuity with their own physician

Long-standing patients usually want their own physician. Katie records that preference along with whether the patient would see a colleague for an earlier visit. Your scheduler, who knows the provider's template in Veracity, makes the choice.

Anything clinical, such as a change in symptoms or a concern about a medication, follows your escalation rules to the clinical staff who know the patient.

Where staff time goes instead

When routine calls arrive as complete summaries, staff time shifts from answering the phone to resolving requests. The check-in desk can focus on patients in the room, the nurse can work refill requests in a batch, and the scheduler can confirm a morning's worth of requests at once.

Established patients still reach a person when they need one. While the office is open, calls can be transferred to staff under your rules.

For a small practice, that shift can be the difference between a receptionist who leaves on time and one who stays late returning calls.