Through a combination of organic growth and mergers with existing outpatient dialysis providers, U.S. Renal Care has grown significantly in recent years. Marcus Burks, Senior Network Director, explains that this rapid growth taxed the organization’s phone environment beyond its limits.
“Our clinical centers all had their own phone environments — mostly on-prem PBX systems — and we were adding different systems, vendors, and carriers with each acquisition. It was very difficult to manage from an IT standpoint, and we were often dependent on outside consultants for help with upgrades and adjustments.” This complexity also created operational challenges, particularly during emergencies, like natural disasters. Those challenges escalated to a top priority in 2019, Marcus adds, when the Federal Communications Commission deregulated copper phone lines, allowing carriers to end their support of the traditional analog phone system — and charge as much as they wanted to continue supporting those lines as they phased out the technology altogether.
“With very little warning, we realized that our company’s legacy phone systems all over the country were about to get a lot more expensive and that we’d need to find a newer solution to replace them soon.”
After a thorough research initiative — which included demos of many cloud communication providers and consulting the Gartner Magic Quadrant for UCaaS solutions — Marcus’s IT team found RingCentral the clear choice for U.S. Renal Care’s 10,000+ employees.
