The general practitioner is usually the first point of contact for patients. Good telephone accessibility is therefore important. It is no coincidence that both the Dutch College of General Practitioners (NHG) and the National Association of General Practitioners (LHV) recommend their members have an emergency line in addition to the regular practice phone.

Research from a few years ago showed that over 80% of the general practitioners who participated in the study had an emergency line.

Of the calls to these lines, 90% were answered within 30 seconds during the study.

Emergency Lines with Multiple Doctors

Emergency lines are often used by groups of doctors within one or even multiple practices. This way, callers can always reach an on-duty doctor via one central emergency number.

How Does an Emergency Line Work

An emergency line number is essentially a virtual number. This means that calls from callers to this number first reach our platform. Our Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system then automatically connects the call to the on-duty, available doctor.

You can keep track of which doctor is on duty in several ways. For example, you can use a simple calendar, where the day and time determine which doctor is on duty at the time of the call. You fill out this calendar once or periodically.

A more flexible and modern setup uses our Employee Availability functionality in combination with our IVR. In this case, doctors mark themselves as ‘available’ at the start of their shift and then as ‘unavailable’ at the end of their shift. They do this easily via our online portal medewerker.belfabriek.nl or via the Employee app for iOS and Android for phones and tablets.

The great advantage of this latter setup is its extreme flexibility. A change in the schedule is no more than a doctor logging in or out.

Benefits of an Emergency Line with Belfabriek

To use our Employee Availability functionality, you don’t need to install any software, read manuals, or learn new things. The use of the online or app interface is intuitive, and you can get started right away.

Belfabriek is the only service number provider in the Netherlands that offers this functionality.

We already have many satisfied users for both systems.

Learn More

Would you like to know more about setting up and maintaining your own emergency line, or do you want to transfer your existing line to Belfabriek? Feel free to contact us. You can reach us via email at klantenservice@belfabriek.nl and on our toll-free number 0800-235 3227. We are available on weekdays from 8:30 AM to 5:30 PM.