Who handles our phones, on-hold messages and text reminders?

Three things that feel like one thing and are supplied differently.

The phone system. Ours. For a dental practice a hosted system is almost always the right answer now: extensions in every operatory, a receptionist who can transfer properly, voicemail to email, and it keeps working from anywhere if the office is closed for a day. It also removes the box in the closet that nobody can get parts for. On-hold messaging and a professional greeting are part of that, and we will get them recorded and loaded.

Appointment reminders and patient messaging. Usually your practice software or a patient communication platform, and they integrate with your schedule. We are not the ones choosing that platform, because the choice is about how it handles confirmations, recall and reviews, which is a practice decision. What we do is make sure it connects to your practice software properly, that the integration keeps working after updates, and that it is set up in a way that does not leak patient information.

Caller ID and the details that annoy patients. Worth attending to. Your practice name showing correctly on outbound calls, texts coming from a number patients recognize, and your main number not being flagged as spam by carriers. That last one happens to practices that send high volumes of reminders and it is fixable, but only if someone notices.

Two things worth thinking about for a dental office specifically:

• Reminder texts are patient communication and HIPAA applies. Not a reason to avoid them, and a reason to use a platform built for healthcare rather than a general texting tool, to keep the content minimal, and to have the business associate agreement in place. We will check that during setup.
• Phones and internet on one connection means one failure takes both. If your hosted phones and your practice run on the same circuit, an outage takes the practice off the air entirely, including the ability to tell patients. A backup connection, even a cellular one, is cheap insurance and it fails over automatically.