Dental Office Answering Service and After-Hours Call Center

We provide after-hours and emergency dental office answering services, on-call dispatching, appointment scheduling, and virtual receptionist services, so you never miss another patient call. This lets you maintain the highest standards of care no matter how small your office is, and it ensures patients receive the attention they need when you or your staff aren’t able to get to the phone.

There are better alternatives to voicemail and automated systems, which at best are too impersonal and at worst could put a patient at risk.

A tailored answering solution from CMS gives you the advantage of our 50 years of developing answering services for healthcare providers, including dentists, orthodontists, periodontists, and oral surgeons. Our highly trained operators can take your calls 24/7, 365 days of the year.

We understand that dental offices are all unique in their specialties and the patients they serve. No matter what type of practice you maintain, our dental answering services are customized to your needs.

We can create a reliable and cost-effective way for patients to reach you for emergencies on the weekend or cover your front desk when your assistant is seeing patients with you. This backup helps prevent burnout and turnover in your staff, and your dental assistant gets to do what they were trained to do — not answer phones.

Whether you’re a solo practice or a large dental office, the CMS team provides that essential link between you and whomever is calling. For instance, if a patient with a new implant is experiencing pain or bleeding at night, our phone answering service operators can follow your protocol to address the situation, whether that’s reaching you at home or directing the patient to meet an on-call dentist at your clinic. We are experienced and professional when it comes to sending urgent cases to the ER or instructing them to call 911 for assistance.

Having your phones manned during office hours offers many benefits to your practice, but it’s tough to prevent calls from slipping through sometimes. Perhaps you like to keep your staffing lean for budgetary purposes, or your regular receptionist is out on leave or vacation. Asking your dental tech to do double duty isn’t the right answer.

A virtual receptionist or live call answering service can let your office function just as if there were someone sitting at your front desk. Patients get the attention they need. Other important callers, like referrals, laboratories, and supply vendors are addressed too, so your practice runs like clockwork without you or the patients in your chair being disturbed.

Dental problems rarely happen at convenient times. Whether it’s a teenager having issues with new orthodonture or a regular patient who just broke multiple teeth at a weekend softball tournament, your patients want to reach you immediately when they have a question or emergency. However, if you have a small practice, or if the incident occurs after-hours, this may not be possible.

Our dental call answering service can take those after-hours calls for you as well as calls that come when you’re with another patient. Using your triage preferences, the pros at our dental after-hours answering service can capture messages and pass them on to you via text, pager, phone call, or email, schedule appointments, or direct patients to emergency treatment at your office or elsewhere.

Emergencies that strike when you’ve got another patient in the chair or when you’re out of the clinic are often the most confounding problem for dental practitioners. Is a patient who just had a tooth extracted in danger of losing too much blood? Does someone with an abscess need antibiotics and pain medication before morning?

You tell us how you want these calls triaged, and we set up an algorithm and script accordingly. We assure each emergency call is handled quickly and accurately. That might mean reaching out to an on-call dentist after-hours or making sure you get a message as soon as you’re done with your current patient. In some cases, instructing the patient to visit the emergency room or call 911 is the appropriate solution.

Whether a patient calls after the office has closed for the day or while you’re tending to another patient, you don’t want to miss a request for an appointment. Not only does this affect your revenue, but it also gives a poor impression to new patients and frustrates established ones. And you don’t want your dental assistant leaving your side to get the phone, as that can compromise patient care at the moment and create an equally negative experience.

Our team can schedule appointments with ease for you. Just like with after-hours and emergency calls, we follow your directions for how you would like these calls managed. Our sophisticated software keeps track of everything and integrates with your other communication platforms for the ultimate in efficiency.

While automated phone services aren’t generally preferable for the kind of personal touch you desire to give your dental patients, there are times when they’re appropriate. Our IVR (interactive voice response) and auto attendant services can fill in when reaching a live person isn’t necessary.

The dental offices with whom we collaborate typically use these services for things like prescreening messages, on-hold messaging, and appointment reminders. You can also use automated services for phone trees to reach various members of a large office and for tasks like providing pre-recorded office hours and directions to the clinic.

If your dental office is like most, business ebbs and flows with the calendar. You might get a flurry of calls at the end of the year from people needing to use their flexible spending accounts before the deadline. Holidays, graduations, and back to school can also bring more patients to your phone lines than normal.

Never miss a call with overflow answering from CMS. We can pick up the slack during certain busy times of the year or when you’re low on staff. We’ll always make sure the most critical calls get the immediate attention they deserve, with you instructing us as to how to handle patients on the phone. Patients won’t get aggravated by being put on long holds, and your staff can get a breather when they need one.