Have you ever called the clinic at Pain Specialty Group only to end up with a voicemail? Have you called again only to obtain the same recorded message on the other end? Frustrated and wondering, have you called one more time, navigated automated menu and left another voice request, only to still wait for a reply?
Sad to say, this scenario is all too familiar with a busy medical practice (not just ours) mainly due to high patient volume, lots of calls for multiple issues and limited staffing.
Enter Digital Triage.
Digital Triage is our integration of the Patient Portal with AthenaHealth, our electronic medical record platform, to help you communicate with us in an efficient and easy manner, while handling secure personal medical information and logging the interactions, information and issues.
It is a system that expedites interactions between patients and providers while decreasing duplication of work to increase efficiency and more effective care.
Since we believe in the technology so much, we present to you 5 top reasons why using Digital Triage is leagues better than calling the clinic for the majority of inquiries. Here they are:
Use Digital Triage anytime. Gone are the days of waiting for Pain Specialty Group to open so you can call and leave a message, only to have a staff member check the all voicemails, make a digital log of each and every one of them, document your specific message into your medical record and then parse the individual inquiries out to the appropriate provider. Not to mention, as the team is listening to current voicemails and taking notes, new messages, at the same time, are accumulating. Couple this task with the fact that it's the same staff who works with you at your in-person clinic visits, one can imagine how slow the process occurs.
With Digital Triage, enter online your inquiry at your convenience (any time), click send, and then wait for the response.
Seriously, not calling and instead submitting your request digitally will help decrease anxiety and stress with waiting and navigating through a voice system that many have become very familiar with, but not fond of. You anxiety will also go down knowing that your inquiry is logged automatically into your medical record word-for-word as how you wrote it. This reduces the element of human misinterpretation and errors generally associated with documenting a voicemail.
Our phone system is secure, but admittantly slow due to aforementioned inefficiencies and involves many outside moving parts when transferring the information. And as you may have guessed, our email system, info@painspecialtygroup.com, is also secure, but not as well built for specific health information as AthenaHealth's Patient Portal. It also doesn't automatically log your communication with Pain Specialty Group as effectively as Digital Triage would. Hence we highly recommend using Digital Triage via Patient Portal to keep your medical information safe, accurate, and secure.
That's right. Sometimes the answer to your inquiry is already in your medical record. The provider may have already completed the task at hand or your question is already answered. Having the chance to review your medical record, while being logged into the Patient Portal for Digital Triage, is sometimes all it takes.
The convenience in completing other items on your "To Do List" is an amazing plus while working on your medical issue. While you're on Digital Triage in Patient Portal and sending us a message, also reply to outstanding personal and work emails and buy that outfit you have always dreamed of. This is multitasking at it's finest. All of this is possible with using Digital Triage at Pain Specialty Group.
Using Digital Triage is extremely easy. Simply locate the Digital Triage logo on the Pain Specialty Group website, click on it, login to the Patient Portal, and send us a message. The system does the rest.
The system actually logs your communication with Pain Specialty Group securely into your personal medical record, notifies the staff of the message, and then allows for your specific inquiry to be forwarded to the appropriate provider with a click of a button. Your response is generally soon to follow conveniently and expeditiously. You can even be alerted on your smartphone when our reply is received.
STEP ONE:
Look for the Digital Triage icon on our Pain Specialty Group website. Click on it.
STEP TWO:
You will be directed to the Patient Portal login page. Ideally, we wanted to have our Pain Specialty Group logo and the Digital Triage image on the login page, but due to budget constraints and our clinic priority for optimizing patient care, we have opted for the bare look shown below.
However, (as we temporarily digress) we decided to give you a sense of what the ideal appearance would look like in a perfect world of unlimited resources for 24 hour real-time live phone answering and 26 weeks a year of vacation for all employees. See below. (Note, this image is what we hope to have in the future).
STEP THREE:
As you login, select "send new message" and the provider, type your message, and then send it. It's THAT easy.
If it's not urgent and you truly prefer to speak with someone live, you may call our clinic in Newington, New Hampshire, at 603-778-9921, or click here to request an appointment online. We are conveniently located to address the pain concerns of people living in the Seacoast region and Portsmouth area.
Again, if there is an emergent issue, please call 911 or proceed to the nearest Emergency Department at your local hospital for immediate care.
Digital Triage is our innovative yet simple solution to help you with quicker and more efficient communications for your healthcare needs.
