Part of this topic was discussed on another thread, but since it was old, I thought I would start a new one, plus ad my other question.
My client is a dentist and will need her telephone answered for her new practice. She will be hiring a receptionist to do these duties in the future, so this particular job will be limited I'm assuming for a couple weeks. Definitely, I will narrow her down on this time frame, since I have commitments mid-May.
My idea is to have her mail me a cell phone that is forwarded from her office number to it. This will prevent me from having a 2nd phone line and having potential long distance calls just for a couple weeks. I will take all incoming calls and make long distance calls from this cell phone. Any toll-free numbers I can call from my home.
I will need to sign up with gotomypc.cm or see if her IT person will be sending me a link to access her dental software. She is wanting me to perform all her inputting and dental claims processing of patient's she will be seeing until her new permanent person starts. All of this is a no-brainier for me and will be basically straight-forward.
My questions are:
She's aware of my hourly fee and knows it billable in 15 minute increments. She informed me her hours will be standard M thru F from 9am to 5pm. I can do this but only for a limited amount of time - let's say a couple weeks. What I'm not sure of is how to go about billing her. If she wants me by the phone every minute, then I will definitely let her know it will be X per hour for 37.5 hours per week.
OR My dh thinks I should let her know that it's X per hours, billable in 15 minute increments, with a
2-hour minimum each day. Then she can have me daily for at least 2 hours per day. Any calls or billings thereafter the 2 hours will be billed in 15 minute increments. This would allow me to input all her prescriptions, referral letters, referring doctors, and completely set up her dental software before her new permanent in-house person is hired. If she chose this option, then I would keep her cell phone with me at during the work-day hours and answer as best I could, returning calls, etc. as needed.
So, basically, she has two way of going, full-time daily per week or a 2 hour minimum per day, plus there after.
Any comments or suggestions? I'll need to email her with her options, then once she decided, I'll send her a contract.
Thank you for your input. This is the third clients I've done this with and it's been a pain in the rear! The last client was easy, he told me right up front, phones answered all the time, M-F, so it was easy. He paid my hourly rated, had a phone already lined up, all I did was answer the phone. Easy!
Phone Answering & Other Tasks
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