Doctor Patient Relations

On-Call Doctor Service: Address Medical Eyecare Emergencies

By Tina McCarty, OD, FAAO

May 6, 2015

SYNOPSIS

Providing a 24-hour, seven-day, on-call doctor service tells patients that you’re the place to turn for eye emergencies. Included are tips on set-up, scheduling andmarketing.

ACTION POINTS

SEND POSITIVE MEDICAL EYECARE MESSAGE. Let patients know you are there for their eyecare health needs, no matter the day or hour.

CREATE ON-CALL SCHEDULE. Work with doctors in your practice, or other local ODs outside of your practice, to create an after-hours on-call schedule.

ESTABLISH RELATIONSHIPS WITH CLINICS. Provide your contact info to walk-in urgent carecenters and clinics inside pharmacies.

When a patient, or a prospective patient who has been referred to us, has a medical eyecare emergency on a Sunday afternoon or in the middle of the night, our seven-doctor practice is there for them. We do this by offering 24-hour, seven-day, on-call doctor service. This is a practice builder for us, allowing us to better care for our patients, and even bring in new patients. We often draw in new patients who were looking online, or through the yellow pages, for an eyecare provider with after-hours service.

If you’re a smaller practice, providing 24-hour on-call service can be challenging, but there is always a way to be creative if the motivation is there. If I was in a small practice, I would try to reach out to practices around mine to see if there was interest in taking each others’ calls after hours to provide better service to patients, but also to give myself a break, and not be on call all of the time.

The summary Dr. McCarty’s practice provides on her practice web site on “Why Choose Us.” Dr. McCarty says providing 24-hour/seven-day on-call service lets patients know you are there for them, no matter the hour. It also is a great way todraw in new patients.

Send a Positive Medical Eyecare Message

Providing on-call doctor service helps to reinforce the message that we are a full-service medical eyecare practice.

One hundred percent of the emergency calls we receive are billed as medical, since the only reason for an emergency call would be an eyecare issue that is medical in nature.

Further, if I see someone on-call after hours, it is typically for something that the patient is very nervous and concerned about. In most cases, if I can help them, they are loyal patients who come back year after year. They remember the after-hours service, and are still grateful for that one time that I helped them. Maybe more importantly, though, they are a very good source of referrals, helping the practice grow!

Coordinate with Doctors

Near the end of every calendar year, an on-call schedule is distributed to all the doctors in the practice for the following calendar year in full. On-call status lasts for one full week when assigned. Our on-call week starts once the office closes on Monday afternoon, and that same doctor is on call for a full week until the office opens the following Monday morning. We do not utilize an online calendar, but the schedule is e-mailed to all the doctors and front desk staff. There is one front desk staffperson responsible for changing the telephone system so the appropriate message, with the on-call doctor’s name and contact information, is heard. That same front desk person sends a friendly reminder to the doctor on-call via e-mail at the beginning of every week.

A doctor could go an entire week without getting one call, but a different week could result in a few calls with eye emergencies that need to be addressed.

There is no cost to the practice of always having a doctor on call. It is simply part of our employment agreement and expectations. Our doctors are not paid for their time on call. Only when a patient is seen is the doctor is paid a percentage of the revenue generated by seeing the patient.

Enable Patients to Contact On-Call Doctor Directly

The on-call doctor’s name and cell phone number arerecorded on the telephone answering system so the patient hears the information when they call the office, and then the patient contacts the on-call doctor directly.

Editor’s Note: Other options include investing in a cell phone and special number for doctors to use when they are on call and using a call center answering service that notifies the on-call doctor of emergency calls.

Prepare for Wide Range of Emergencies

The issue can be as simple as a glaucoma patient who ran out of drops and needs a refill after hours. Most commonly it is a foreign body, contact lens patient with an infection, some type of trauma resulting in a corneal abrasion or other trauma-related disorder, orsudden onset of flashes/floaters and symptoms of a retinal tear or detachment.

Establish Relationships with Walk-In Clinics

We are not affiliated with any hospital or family practice, but we have relationships with the various “minute clinics” inside of pharmacies, and we havelet them know we are happy to see any eye-related issue that they are not comfortable treating. Thishas resulted in direct referrals of new patients to our practice.

Publicize On-Call Service on Practice Web Site

We have our on-call doctor availability listed on our web site and through other external marketing ads and the telephone book. Our doctors and staff are also very good about educating the patients of this service. For example, I could see a difficult case on a Friday afternoon, and have a suspicion that the patient won’t be able to make it though the weekend without being seen. The on-call doctor is alerted to the challenging case, and the patient is educated that there is availability should symptoms get worse, or if they have other immediate eyecare needs.

Tina McCarty, OD, FAAO, is a partner of Eye Care Center in Fridley, Maplewood and Maple Grove, Minn. To contact her: tina.mccarty@eyecarecenters.net

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