This is a continuation of the discussion of a phone service for your medical office.
Howie’s tips: Cox was nice enough to let me start off with one line (which I activated and forwarded to my cell phone) about two months before I opened. They didn’t make me pay the bill for the other two lines and fax until I moved in.
As I previously mentioned I pay about $225 per month for three lines plus a fax line with internet. I compared costs with colleagues and don’t think that’s significantly higher than VoIP companies such as Nextiva or Ring Central.
You can always add in more lines later if you decide to hire more people. Better to start off smaller.
What I did was get a prepaid ATT phone and ported the number to my one of my three landlines. The phone company will give you a choice of numbers, pick the easiest number to remember as your public number (mine is 533-4666) and the more random digits as your private or emergency lines.
Some folks don’t have a dedicated fax line but rather use the doximity app or receive faxes through their EHR. We’ve heard of some folks getting charged exorbitant fees like 10 cents per page for every fax over a certain number of pages, so if you do this negotiate up front and don’t underestimate how many faxes you’ll get.
Personally I prefer paper faxes and initial/ sign off on all patient correspondence before it’s scanned in. I like to see who is referring to me, and to read the notes regarding patients I referred out.
My EHR does take incoming faxes and can link it to the patient record saving scanning, but I like it printed out when I’m seeing the patient so I don’t have to constantly turn to the computer and click on it and scroll to find the records. My staff and I also find it easier to input data such as meds or PMH/ ROS if we have the papers right in front of us rather than scanned, but I guess I’m old school!!!
