Raleigh Medical Group

Raleigh Medical Group (RMG), P.A., is an independent, multi-specialty group in Raleigh, NC. The organization has 21 physicians, one physician’s assistant and three nurse practitioners. With over 30,000 clients in its active database, the organization is the largest privately owned internal medicine practice in its area.

“We want the ability to answer every one of the calls into Raleigh Medical Group by a human being. The more efficiency you provide for patients, the better the care they receive.”
- Cynthia Cox, Practice Administrator, Raleigh Medical Group.

In late 2003, RMG was using a traditional Avaya TDM phone system that was not easy or affordable to maintain. As a healthcare provider, the group needed flexibility and ease-of-use that would allow it to make changes to its own phone system during peak times in order to balance the load — such as during a drug recall when phone calls are constant. RMG turned to the organization’s managed services technology partner of over three years, who introduced ShoreTel solutions for consideration.

“It came down to a choice between buying the old Avaya system we’d been leasing or buying a new ShoreTel system.”
- Cynthia Cox, Practice Administrator, Raleigh Medical Group.

ShoreTel provided Raleigh Medical Group with six ShoreTel 120 and four ShoreTel T1 Voice Switches, as well as more than 200 ShoreTel IP Phones. A ShoreTel 120 Voice Switch handles analog lines for faxes and modems. The design took about three weeks, and the rollout — from installation to switch over — took another three. Employee training took virtually no time, with over 200 users up and running within a few days of deployment. Other benefits include:

• Estimated savings of at least $1,500 per month on lease costs and support of the old system alone. The non-monetary gains have been the ease of use and intuitiveness of the system.
• Flexibility to route call traffic and to distribute it evenly across its three buildings, even across city lines. A majority of the calls — if not all of them — are answered by a human being rather than by voicemail.
• In July of 2005, the practice moved its Cary, NC location to another new building. From a voice-services point of view, the change was seamless and virtually unnoticeable to patients.
• ShoreTel’s Workgroups offers RMG voice call routing to consolidate calls to one number, and basic reporting for accurate and effective call volume measurement and time management. Workgroups also offers historical and real-time tools to help with planning and forecasting.

“The ShoreTel system is far more cost-effective for the advanced technology we were getting. It gave us the flexibility and the ability to maintain the system ourselves without having to turn to an outside vendor to support the system — which can be a cumbersome and expensive process.”
- Cynthia Cox, Practice Administrator, Raleigh Medical Group.