The First HITRUST Certified Answering Service
844-8-NOTIFY
Streamline Patient Care with 24/7 Nurse Triage Services
Nurse triage services are a proactive first line of defense that plays a critical role in healthcare. This service optimizes patient outcomes while providing peace of mind to practitioners.
At notifyMD®, we stand behind our decades of experience working with physicians, hospitals, community clinics, health plans, and patient access centers. We ensure patients receive the support and guidance they need when they need it.
Our dedicated team of registered nurses evaluates each situation using the Schmitt-Thompson protocols and is trained in physician specialties, such as pediatrics, cardiology, gastroenterology, dental, and many more.
Their knowledge and experience ensure patients receive the highest quality evaluations and medical advice and are guided to the appropriate level of care. Our nurse triage answering service provides patients with 24/7 access to professional advice, whether referring them to an emergency room, transferring them to the doctor on call, scheduling an appointment, or providing suggestions for at-home care.
Hospitals and private medical practices use our nurse triage services to give patients access to registered nurses 24/7. This service streamlines patient care, addressing health concerns as they arise.
Instead of leaving a message or heading to the emergency room, patients receive medical advice, directing them to the appropriate action and treatment of choice, whether urgent care, home care, a follow-up doctor’s visit, or a call to 911.
Your staff is unburdened with morning callbacks, and you can rest assured knowing your patients are receiving the guidance they need. Patients feel a sense of relief, getting immediate advice instead of waiting until regular office hours. You and your staff have detailed notes on nurses’ recommendations.
When patients experience physical symptoms on the weekends or at night, their first choice is often the emergency department. However, many of these visits are non-urgent, placing a burden on emergency staff, increasing wait times, and competing with cases requiring immediate intervention.
A phone triage nurse identifies when patients require emergency intervention and when they would be better served with a scheduled healthcare appointment. They offer concerned patients a calming, compassionate presence, answering questions and setting their minds at ease.
The Benefits of Nurse Triage Services for Healthcare Providers
Nurse triage services offer numerous benefits for healthcare providers.
- Increases Patient Satisfaction: Knowing they have access to a registered nurse 24/7 offers immense relief for patients experiencing challenging physical conditions. Those helped by your after-hours care team quickly share their experience with friends and family.
- Outsourcing Removes the Burden: According to the Bureau of Health Workforce, there is a projected shortage of over 78,600 full-time RNs in the U.S. in 2025. Partnering with services like notifyMD® relieves the burden of hiring, training, scheduling, evaluating, and ensuring the highest quality care.
- Reduces Costs: Outsourcing patient calls reduces costs associated with hiring and training additional staff.
- Enhances Work-Life Balance: By alleviating the demands associated with patient calls and after-hours concerns, you experience less stress and an improved work-life balance.
- Avoids Unnecessary Emergency Visits: Unnecessary emergency visits often result in overburdened staff and financial stress for patients.
- Provides an Extension of Your Team: Our registered nurses adhere to office-specific protocols, ensuring patients feel they’ve reached one of your staff members and not a third-party answering service. This level of care improves the patient experience and your practice’s reputation.
- Increases Revenue: When medically appropriate, triage nurses schedule appointments and, if warranted, next-day follow-up visits.
- Reduces Staff Burnout: Healthcare workers experience high stress levels due to the emotional situations they encounter and constant administrative demands. Using a medical answering service can help prevent burnout and reduce their workload.
How Nurse Triage Services Improve Patient Outcomes
Incorporating 24/7 after-hours nurse triage services ensures patients get to the right level of treatment when needed. With registered nurses trained in the latest protocols, patients receive accurate assessments that can improve patient outcomes while enhancing your practice’s reputation.
Following your office and Schmitt-Thompson’s protocols offers the highest-quality healthcare advice, care, and clinical efficiency. These protocols provide guidelines for almost all symptoms, establishing a line of questions to determine the severity of the illness and the best patient experience and outcome.
HIPAA-Compliant Nurse Triage Services for Reliable Care
Offering HIPAA-complaint nurse triage services lets your patients know you value their privacy and adhere to regulations protecting their sensitive health information. At notifyMD®, our rigorous training in HIPAA policies and procedures ensures our call services provide your patients with the highest security level.
With our decades of experience, you can be confident in our nurse triage services, providing your patients with skilled, effective support that lets you enjoy restorative, uninterrupted time away. Utilizing the notifyMD® app lets you decide when our team steps in with the tap of an icon, providing flexibility, convenience, and security.
Frequently Asked Questions
At notifyMD®, we go beyond HIPAA compliance. As the first answering service to be HITRUST Certified, we’ve demonstrated our commitment to the highest levels of patient information protection. HITRUST, the gold standard in health information privacy, combines security controls and risk management from HIPAA, NIST, ISO, and PCI, inserting them into a comprehensive privacy program.
Nurse triage services handle a large amount of sensitive patient data. Ensuring HIPAA compliance is essential to a medical practice and the patients who entrust them with their care and information. Unfortunately, the healthcare industry leads in third-party data breaches.
A 2025 survey by Ponemon Institute and Imprivata, as reported by TechTarget, found that 44% of healthcare organizations reported a third-party data breach or cyberattack.
For this reason, medical practices are going one step further than HIPAA compliance and requiring HITRUST certification. With this certification and our decades of experience, you can be confident that our nurse triage services maintain the highest standards in protected health information.
notifyMD®’s registered nurses follow Schmitt-Thompson protocols. These protocols are the gold standard in evaluating patients, providing guidelines and established questions based on a patient’s symptoms and responses.
Using evidence and symptom-based assessments, qualified nurses determine the appropriate next steps and level of care for the patient. They may advise them on at-home care, schedule an appointment, forward them to the on-call provider, or refer them to an emergency room.
By working with registered nurses who have advanced training and utilize the most up-to-date protocols, you can be confident that they are functioning within their scope of practice. Your patients receive access to knowledgeable registered nurses and the guidance they need, right when they need it. You receive peace of mind and the time you need to rejuvenate.
Yes. All of our services at notifyMD® are customized to meet your practice’s specific needs. Some practitioners want after-hours nurse triage services, ensuring their patients have access to highly trained nurses who can address any concerns and help them receive the best healthcare possible.
Other medical practices choose to incorporate our phone triage nurse services 24/7. This comprehensive approach reduces staff burnout, enabling them to focus on their many in-office tasks, from administration to attending to onsite patients. They support patients with the same care and concern as your staff, ensuring seamless operations.
Yes. Urgent call messages are sent to the on-call provider immediately. In the case of nurse triage services, patients who require urgent care may be referred to an emergency facility or instructed to call 911.
Registered nurses carefully screen non-urgent calls. They collect the patient’s information, including the symptoms or illness that prompted the call. Using Schmitt-Thompson protocols, they ask relevant questions that enable them to determine the severity and advise the patient.
With over 30 years of experience in nurse triage answering services, you can be confident in our team’s ability to distinguish between urgent and non-urgent calls and respond accordingly.
Our registered nurses are available when you need them, 24/7, because your patients’ health concerns aren’t limited to 9 to 5. In fact, when the day quiets down and night arrives, is when many people begin wondering if that ache they’ve been feeling in their chest is really indigestion or something more serious.
Instead of having to wait for your office to open, they can immediately talk to a compassionate nurse who, having been trained in your practice’s procedures and Schmitt-Thompson protocols, knows exactly what to say and the questions to ask.
Through our notifyMD® secure, encrypted messaging app, contacting us and requesting our nurse triage and answering service is just one tap away.
At notifyMD®, our registered nurses are trained in numerous physician specialties, including:
- Cardiology
- Dental
- Dermatoloty
- Gastroenterology
- Opthalmology
- Optometry
- Orthopedic Surgeons
- Urology
- Hospice
- Clinics & Ancillary Providers
We also assist general practitioners, behavioral health professionals, ambulatory surgical centers, and patient access centers.