Home Health Answering Service

24/7 Call Center Services for Home Health Agencies

Home health agencies are busy, 24/7 enterprises responsible for tending to the healthcare needs of patients from the comfort of their homes. Therefore, professionalism, compassion, and communication are paramount.

As a live answering service serving the needs of home health agencies nationwide, CMS specializes in delivering call center solutions that help agencies maintain constant availability. Our call center agents field calls around the clock and coordinate communication between caregivers, schedulers, medical professionals, patients, and family members.

Working as an Extension of Your Agency

Our home healthcare answering service is staffed by highly trained call center agents who are experienced at handling the vast array of calls you receive. Whether it’s an after-hours staffing emergency, daytime overflow call, facility admission, lab results, or a routine office message — we can tailor our response and scripting to the exact situation and ensure all necessary information is collected.

With hundreds of home health clients nationwide, CMS has over 50 years of experience providing medical answering services. Our services are designed to meet your needs and are customized for home health agencies of all shapes and sizes.

Call Answering Service Features

• 24/7 Home Healthcare Answering Service. After hours, daytime overflow, around-the-clock — whenever you need us, we’re there.
• Home Health On-call Scheduling. On-call scheduling software and escalation procedures for ensuring calls reach the proper personnel.
• 100% HIPAA Compliant. Live operators and systems built around HIPAA regulations.
• Secure Messaging. Safe, encrypted messaging that prevents leaks of personal data.
• Employee Hotline and Dispatching. We can field caregiver calls 24/7 and process them based on the call type.

Custom Answering Services for Home Health Companies

We deliver more than your typical medical answering service by combining top-tier customer service with leading technology personalized to your organization’s needs.

• Virtual Office Receptionist. Home health virtual office receptionists help maintain a courteous telephone presence while freeing office employees to work on other tasks.
• Home Health Appointment Scheduling. Give patients the ability to schedule and manage their appointments 24 hours a day. Our answering service integrates with numerous web-based calendar systems.
• Emergency Answering Service. Be prepared for every emergency call. We refer calls to the emergency room, patch patients to on-call staff, and facilitate urgent message dispatching.
• After-Hours Answering Service. Important calls don’t wait for office hours. Maintain availability with after-hours answering services and ensure your home health agency never misses a call.
• Appointment Reminders. Reduce the cost of missed appointments and scheduling mistakes with patient and staff reminder calls.
• Home Healthcare Auto Attendant. Extend your staff, elevate patient engagement, and help ensure seamless communications with automated solutions from CMS.

Home Healthcare Call Center Services

Our years of experience working with home health care and hospice practices back up each of the services we offer:

• Provider On-Call Scheduling: Our web-based on-call scheduling system ensures uninterrupted on-call coverage for your patients by your nursing staff. This fully customizable system allows real-time updates and changes by you to ensure that we always reach the correct staff member. This efficient system reduces managerial time, overstaffing, and frustration while keeping the connection between your nursing staff and patients seamless and professional.
• Home Health Care Appointment Scheduling and Reminders: A good scheduling and reminder system ensures that your professionals are where they need to be and that patients are ready and available, saving you valuable time and expense. Whether you prefer a fully automated system or a personal touch, CMS will design the right system for you and your patients.
• After-Hours Answering Service and Emergency Call Dispatching: CMS ensures that your agency is available to patients 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Our professionals are sensitive to the needs of patients and their families and respond with the utmost patience, respect, and attention to protocols designed by you.

The customized CMS hospice emergency answering call plan includes details such as:

• How to gather the types of information that will best inform medical decisions
• When and how to direct the next steps for the caller
• When to dispatch a member of your nursing staff
• Decision trees to cover any contingency

The CMS Difference

When your patients or customers call and reach our HIPAA-compliant home healthcare call center, they always speak with a caring, compassionate, professional operator whose training reflects the patient customer service that matters most to you.

CMS highlights:

• 24/7/365 answering services
• Serving over 1,000 healthcare providers nationwide
• Friendly, US-based call center agents
• Over 50 years of healthcare experience
• Fully HIPAA compliant
• Quick, accurate triage and on-call paging
• Auto attendant and IVR solutions
• 100% customizable

Frequently Asked Questions

How much does a home health answering service cost?

Our home health answering services are priced based on usage, with plans starting at just $50 a month. That means you only pay for the time you need, nothing more. So whether you’re a small office receiving a few phone calls per month or a multi-location agency fielding thousands of phone calls across hundreds of patients and caregivers, our pricing is flexible to meet your needs. To learn more and see our base pricing plans, click here.

Are your services HIPAA compliant?

Yes. All of our home healthcare answering services are 100% HIPAA compliant. We take privacy and security seriously.

What type of calls do you take for home healthcare agencies?

We are prepared to field every call your home health agency receives, day or night, routine or urgent. Some of the standard call types we field include:

• Calls from the Doctor or Doctor’s office
• Employee – Office Message
• Employee – Out Sick/Late
• Employee – Urgent Question
• Facility Admission
• Facility Discharge
• Lab Results – Critical
• Lab Results – All
• Patient Expired
• Referral – Facility
• Referral – Family Member
• Routine Office Message
• Supplies – Meds – ETC
• Medical Devices – O2 – IV – Pumps – ETC
• Urgent Patient Calls
• Visit – Cancel/Reschedule – Same Day
• Visit – Cancel/Reschedule – Next Day
• Visit – Patient Not At Home
• Visit – Provider No Show
• Visit – Time/Question – Same Day
• Visit – Time/Question – Next Day
• And more! Each type of call you receive can be accounted for in advance so that our agents are equipped with the information and protocols they need to handle every call successfully.

How does on-call dispatching work? Can we change on-call contacts?

We utilize an on-call scheduling system that enables you to manage your on-call schedule. That way, it’s always up-to-date and integrated with our call center. We follow the instructions that each on-call contact has on file. We can reach practitioners via secure text message, page, or a phone call — whichever contact method works best for them. We can also follow detailed escalation procedures to ensure we reach someone if our primary on-call or contact method is unsuccessful. In short, we always have what we need to reach the right on-call staff member and do so quickly to ensure your patients, staff, and other callers hear back quickly.