5 Best VoIP Systems for Healthcare Professionals 2024

Healthcare professionals work in some of the most demanding and pressurised environments in the world. Clear communication is crucial, and failure to communicate properly can have very serious and sometimes fatal consequences.

That’s why you need a VoIP provider you can rely on, and our expert insights team have found that RingCentral is the best solution for healthcare providers, scoring an impressive 4.7/5 during rigorous testing of a number of different platforms. We regularly test and review a number of different VoIP providers across different UK industries and know the unique challenges each one of these industries have.

We looked at a couple key criteria when evaluating each VoIP system including the capacity to deal with large levels of inbound calls, high standards of data protection when dealing with patient information, and the ability to streamline multiple forms of communications.

1. RingCentral – Best Overall VoIP Provider for Healthcare

RingCentral Key Features

Overall RingCentral scored 4.7/5 for Features, which is the highest out of every system we looked at, making it the best choice for healthcare providers in 2024.

It provides a wealth of necessary features for healthcare providers, especially when it comes to inbound communications. Healthcare providers deal with a large number of calls and your VoIP provider needs to be able to manage this easily. Customisable greetings, voicemail, a virtual receptionist, voicemail to text, customisable hold music and the ability to set company hours.

RingCentral also offers call queuing and ring groups but only on its Premium and Ultimate plans. It also doesn’t have spam prevention in the UK, it’s only available in the US and Canada. Throughout our research we found many providers didn’t offer spam prevention which is an important feature for stopping time wasting spam calls. If you really need spam prevention, look at Google Voice, one of the few VoIP providers that offer spam prevention.

Even with these drawbacks, RingCentral offers the most features to deal with the pressurised environment of healthcare providers. It also streamlines calls, text and video in one place, an important feature we found healthcare providers need from a VoIP system.

How Secure Is RingCentral?

RingCentral scored 4/5 for Security in our research, which is a good score but by no means the highest on our list, with some providers scoring 5/5.

They do have a solid set of security features though, such as multi-factor authentication, password rules, and encryption. However, user-permissions are only available on Premium and Ultimate plans.

We also noticed that RingCentral doesn’t have as many compliance certifications as a provider like 8×8 but still has more than other providers we reviewed.

2. 8×8 – Best for Integrations

8×8 Key Features

Overall 8×8 scored 4.1/5 for Features in our research and while it has a good range of features for healthcare, it falls down somewhat as some features come as an additional cost, which also factored into 8×8 scoring a low 3.5/5 when it came to cost.

Like RingCentral, 8X8 has many of the key healthcare specific features every top of the range VoIP provider has. However, like RingCentral, spam protection is not a feature. As well as that, SMS is only available in the US and Canada.

8X8 also offers a good range of collaboration features like team messaging, document sharing, and video conferencing, all of which are crucial for sharing important information in the healthcare environment.

8×8 shines when it comes to integrations, integrating with internal live chat providers like Slack, Telegram and Yammer. It also integrates with all major helpdesk platforms, like Hubspot, Freshdesk, Zendesk, and Salesforce.

One drawback we found during our research was that 8X8 only integrates with Outlook while RingCentral integrates with both Gmail and Outlook.

How Secure Is 8×8?

Patient data and information is especially sensitive so you need to be sure this is shared in a secured environment. VoIP security is one of the main concerns of healthcare providers when choosing a system.

We’ve rated 8×8 really high for its security features, rating it 5/5. It comes with all the crucial security features like multi-factor authentication, password rules, encryption, and user permission.

It also has the most compliance certificates of any provider we tested, including GDPR compliance, which is governed by the UKs Data Protection Act 2018. This level of external verification means it has an elite level of security in comparison to other VoIP providers in our review.

3. Vonage – Best for Price

Vonage Key Features

Vonage scores 4/5 for Features, which is lower than other providers on our list. On the other hand, it scores 5/5 for price, which is why we’ve rated it as the best provider for price on the list. Its most expensive plan, the Ultimate plan, is only £16.50 per user, per month, making it one of the cheapest highest tier plans out of all the providers we researched.

Vonage allows for unlimited users on all its plans, which is important in a busy healthcare environment like a large hospital. Vonage lacks some essential features on its most basic plan, such as a virtual receptionist and a customisable greeting.

It lacks other key healthcare relevant features like call recording and customisable call routes on its most basic plan. In saying that though the most basic plan is £9.99 per user per month so it’s not too much of a stretch to pay for the Ultimate plan at £16.50 per user, per month. On this plan you will get a lot more features for a good price.

How Secure Is Vonage?

Vonage scores 3/5 for security, which is the lowest out of the healthcare providers we’ve profiled. The main reason is the lack of multi-factor authentication and password rules. Protecting patient data is vital in a healthcare environment.

Vonage does have a good selection of compliance certificates and comes with encryption and user permissions. If you need a more secure provider on the cheaper end of the pricescale, look at 8X8s cheapest plan, X2, which is £19 per user per month.

4. Google Voice – Best for Security

Google Voice Key Features

Google Voice scores quite low for features, coming in at 3.1/5 as it doesn’t offer call queuing and customisable hold music. Call queuing is an especially key feature for healthcare providers where they experience a large number of calls. It also lacks customisable greetings and virtual receptionist on its starter plan.

On top of that, you can only access Google Voice through Google workspace, so it may be off limits to healthcare providers who don’t use Google Workspace. However, it is one of the few VoIP healthcare providers that offers spam protection, which is important for cutting out any wasted time that spam calls cause.

How Secure Is Google Voice?

When evaluating the security of Google Voice, we scored their security features an impressive 5/5.

It offers the security features that are non-negotiable in a healthcare setting, such as multi-factor authentication, password rules and encryption.

There’s also lots of compliance certificates, which gives it a high external security evaluation, similar to 8×8.

5. Best for Automating Tasks With AI

Dialpad Key Features

Out of all the providers we tested, Dialpad has the most focus on AI, specifically conversational AI. Accenture predicts that AI technology will save the US healthcare system $150 billion annually and it’s not hard to see this happening in healthcare systems the world over.

Dialpad uses natural language processing and machine learning features to analyse your conversation and improve engagements with colleagues and patients. In our research and testing of Dialpad we scored their Features a respectable 4.3/5.

Dialpad offers unlimited users on all its plans. Its Pro plan requires a minimum of 3 users and its Enterprise plan requires a minimum of 100 users. In terms of its inbound communication features, Dialpad offers everything you need to deal with the volume of calls in a healthcare setting. The only feature absent is call queueing on the Standard plan.

Dialpad offers users an app where they can unify all their communications, combining phone calls, video telehealth appointments, all on the one app. In our research we found that healthcare providers need to be able to communicate through different channels in one, streamlined place and Dialpad certainly provides this.

Where Dialpad scores low in our research is on External Connections. It scores 2.4/5 for External Connections, which is probably the lowest out of all the VoIP providers we looked at. One of the key reasons for this is the lack of connection to first party deskphones, which can play an important role in a healthcare provider’s communication system.

How Secure Is Dialpad?

Another area where Dialpad scores low is Security, receiving 3/5 which again is low in comparison to the other providers we reviewed. The main reason is the lack of important security features like multi-factor authentication and password rules.

It does have a number of compliance certifications and key security features like encryption and user-permissions. Overall, Dialpad is average when it comes to security features and if you are looking for a provider with security, look at Google Voice.

How Did We Find the Best VoIP Providers for Healthcare?

Our unbiased software research team firstly interviewed healthcare professionals to discover what exactly the need from a VoIP telephone system in a healthcare setting. They found three main requirements:

• The capacity to deal with a large number of inbound calls.
• Super tight security features to protect sensitive patient data.
• The ability to streamline calls, text, video, and any other communication format.

After this our team created 5 main categories to score each VoIP provider:

• Price: How much the provider costs per user, per month and if it’s value for money.
• External connections: The capacity the provider has for integrating with external hardware and software.
• Features: What the provider offers to deal with large volumes of inbound calls and help streamline multiple forms of communication.
• Customer Support: How reliable, available and helpful a provider’s customer support function is.
• Security: The level of security a provider has to protect sensitive patient information.

After rigorous testing, each provider is scored out of 5 in each category and given an average score out of 5 overall.