A support service that routes patient calls to a backup team when call volume is high enough that the practice’s main staff aren’t able to answer promptly. Calls are usually routed to overflow either after a set number of rings, or during peak hours when all of the main staff are occupied. Call overflow coverage allows patients to reach a human agent even during busy periods, without patients being forced to leave a voicemail or just hang up.
Also called: overflow call handling, call overflow service, rollover coverage, backup call coverage
How does overflow coverage work?
First, a call will ring at the practice itself. What happens next depends on the practice’s routing rules. For some, after a set amount of rings without an answer the call will be sent to overflow. For others, calls will automatically route to overflow during certain hours if all in-house agents are busy. Once the call is routed, the overflow team handles the call under the practice’s name and with the same procedures and protocols.
What can an outsourced overflow team handle?
A call overflow team can handle a variety of tasks for a medical practice, including, but not limited to:
- Confirmations
- General questions
- Scheduling and rescheduling
- Taking messages for clinical staff
Note that clinical questions should only be answered by actual clinical staff, so any overflow team should always follow the practice’s established escalation rules in those circumstances.
When does overflow coverage make sense?
- Peak-hour spikes: During hours when a practice tends to have a higher volume of calls, overflow allows the practice to stay on top of the workload without creating or adding to a backlog.
- Short-staffed days: Fewer people to answer phones naturally means a lower volume of calls a practice can handle, which makes overflow a convenient option to turn to on those days.
- Multi-site groups with uneven call volume: In multi-site medical groups, it’s common that some locations will get more calls than others. However, it doesn’t always make sense to staff those locations consistently for their peak volumes. Overflow coverage takes the extra calls from each of those locations and allows each of them to retain a reasonably sized staff.
- Not ready to outsource all calls: For practices that need a little extra help handling calls, but want to remain the main point of contact for patients, overflow coverage is a great compromise that keeps most of the patient calls in-house.
How is call overflow measured?
The metrics that are most relevant to call overflow coverage are:
- Call abandonment rate: What percentage of callers hang up before talking to someone? Overflow coverage should be taking on the calls that would otherwise be stuck in the queue waiting for an answer. If overflow coverage is working as it should, the call abandonment rate should be lower than it was without overflow services.
- For Treasure Coast Community Health, ROI CX Solutions was able to provide overflow coverage among other services. In under 3 months, the call abandonment rate dropped from 27% to just 5%.
- Average speed to answer: What is the average amount of time it takes for a phone call to be picked up, from the time the caller enters the queue to the time an agent picks up. A successful integration of overflow coverage into this process should drive the average speed to answer down.
- Percent of overflow calls resolved without a callback: These are the overflow calls where the patient had their main concern fully handled during the first conversation. If this remains high, it shows that the overflow team is giving high-quality service.
Overflow coverage vs. full call center outsourcing vs. answering service
- Overflow coverage: Catches the calls that in-house staff miss when otherwise occupied.
- Full call center outsourcing: Takes over all calls that were previously handled in-house.
- Answering service: Mostly takes messages and relays them to the medical practice.
FAQs
Will patients know their call went to an overflow team?
No. Overflow teams are trained in the procedures, policies, and phone scripts of the medical practice, answering with the practice’s name to provide a seamless patient experience.
Does an overflow team need access to our EMR?
This will depend on what the practice is asking of the overflow team. When it comes to tasks like updating patient information or scheduling appointments, the overflow team will need access to those systems, but with limited permissions based on what they need for the tasks at hand. With more basic tasks like taking messages, routing urgent calls, or answering common questions, no EMR access will be needed.
Can overflow coverage be limited to certain hours?
Yes. Overflow coverage can be set up to be active whenever it happens to be needed, whether that’s during lunch breaks, during peak hours, on short-staffed days, or any number of time frames.
