In Part 1 of this topic, I discussed the key issue your practice must resolve before purchasing a phone system: what are your needs? Now let’s review the questions you need to ask yourself and why they are so important:

1. How many people and devices need to be on the phone at one time? Don’t forget that voice calls are not the only things which tie up your phone lines. Take an inventory of any peripheral devices which could possibly be in use concurrently with your staff: modems, fax or postage machines, credit card machines, or your security system.
2. How many calls at each location do you need to receive at one time? You don’t want to limit the number of lines you have and then have patients unable to get through. This will also help you determine if you need to have an actual call center set up.
3. How many phone numbers do you need? For a large practice with one location, you may only need a few public numbers but the ability to handle many phone calls. On the other hand, you would need many internal numbers depending on the number of employees. A smaller practice with more locations may need more external numbers but relatively fewer internal numbers.
4. How many physical phones do you need at each location?
5. And how many will typically be in use at the same time? And at peak times?

Now, how many phone lines did you come up with? Save that number but don’t tell me just yet. For purposes of our discussion, the magic number is 14.

If you are a solo practitioner or in a small group, you may not need more than a few lines. In this case, you’ll have less initial costs with an analog phone system. In addition to paying for the phone system, you will also incur monthly charges for each phone line coming into your office as well as for additional features such as caller ID, call forwarding, conference calling, etc.

If you calculated that you would need 14 lines or more, a digital phone system would be more cost-effective – the up-front costs will be higher but you won’t have to pay for each separate phone line and its add-on features (the cost of which can escalate arithmetically).

For our practice, the decision was obvious. In our new administrative building, a digital phone system would be the most cost-effective solution for handling the close to 3000 calls we receive a week.

There are also several other advantages to a digital phone system:

• Through a single T1 line coming into our building, we have 22 “channels” which function just like incoming phone lines – this is known as a PRI (primary rate interface). By adding a second PRI, we gain 22 more lines. We figured that we may have as many as 35 lines in use at the same time.

• The Kevlar-sheathed fiber-optic cable is resistant to lightning strikes as well as errant back-hoes making it more reliable than standard telephone cables.

• Because the system uses what are known as “soft” numbers, it allows us to have 100 internal phone numbers, enough that each employee can have his or her own private number.

• Since we gained so many new phone numbers, we were able to eliminate almost twenty analog phone lines in the previous call center, saving over fifty dollars per line per month. Even with the cost of the new system, we have realized a significant net savings.

• Our digital system also came with more advanced features such as Call Accounting (which tracks number of calls, by which phones and by whom they were answered, and whether they were appointment-related or not) and

• ACD or Automatic Call Distribution (which automatically determines which person should get the next call based on how long her phone has been idle). These last two features, which can be expensive if purchased separately, are especially important to us since we essentially run three call centers: one for the operators, one for the practice billing, and one for the ASC billing

Lastly, make sure you take your time when making this important decision. A little planning now can save you a lot of aggravation (and money) later. Ask your local phone company to give you a proposal for a phone system that best suits your needs. Then let an independent phone vendor do the same – just make sure that they are factory-certified by the manufacturer they sell so that they have kept up with the latest technologies.

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Related posts:

1. Choosing a Phone System for Your Practice
2. Choosing the Right Network Design for Your Medical Practice