The role of a call center in streamlining healthcare management is growing by leaps and bounds. Over the years, healthcare call centers have unified the handling of a range of critical healthcare processes for providers. These include patient appointment and scheduling, centralized management of key information, patient care questions, prescription refills and important outbound communications etc. In fact, providers have reaped such immense value by delegating critical tasks to call centers, that they are mulling to delegate even traditional in-house functions to call centers in days to come. As your hunt for a healthcare call center should be driven by this possibility in mind, you need to shift your considerations for choosing a call center from parameters like staff training and call strategy to technology and modernization.
Before, we delve into the nitty gritty of a modernized call center, lets first understand the meaning of a modern-day contact center? A modern-day call center is one which is integrated with email, web chat, texting, video, and core telephony functions, such as marketing and scheduling and has essentially made a transition from legacy to Cloud. While all of these are important, it’s equally important for you to consider the technology they are using and how does it fit with the features you want.
| Did You Know About 49% of consumers bank on at least three to five different communication modes to get in touch with customer service. (Microsoft Dynamics 365, 2020) |
The Features You Need to Look for in a Modernized Contact Center
Omnichannel Support:
When a contact center is omni-channel it can move to any channel of communication any time based on the need of the patient. This is possible only when the channels of the contact center are connected to share information and work together. Such a contact center can easily work as an integral part of your website and social media efforts. A disciplined omni-channel contact centers can always introduce new customer channels with your requirements. This way your contact center is prepared to scale with your healthcare business.
Benefits of Omni Channel Support
- Remove Waiting Time on Call
- Improve Operational Efficiency
- Maximize Service & Minimize Cost
- Enhance Patient Satisfaction
Cloud-based or Single Platform:
A Cloud-based contact center is like a call center without any telecom hardware. Instead, phone calls are done with the help of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology. All they do is to provide workstations, headsets, and an internet connection to their agents. When agents log in, they get calls, emails, or chat messages from various contact modes. A CRM software syncs customer interaction in the background, so that the data is available for everyone. When you bank on cloud-based contact center, you will ensure your customers get support regardless of where they seek it. Agents have the option of replying via an online message or starting an outbound call with a software-based dialer.
Benefits of Cloud-based Contact Centers
- Built For Remote Work
- Improved Agent Productivity
- Complete Reliability and Upgrade Time
- Well integrated ecosystem
According to Gartner spending on contact center solutions is expected to touch $15.2 billion in 2023. An IDC report highlights that business cloud solutions will continue to overtake (54%) on-site technology investments (46%).
| Did You Know The standard metric of service level in contact center is 20 seconds. About 80% of resolutions are done within this time. (Cloudtalk, 2020) |
Precision Call Routing:
Precision routing facilitates routing calls to the right skill. A contact center that uses this technology can dynamically map the precision queues and route a call to the agent who matches the caller’s exact needs. If a precision queue requires a Boston-based agent, who is fluent in Spanish, and proficient in answering queries related to cardiology then it would do that precisely. If the agent is not available it will route it automatically to the next agent with same attributes. The preciseness of the call is made based on a step-by-step call qualifying phase.
Benefits of Precision Routing Technology
- Increase First Call Resolution Rates
- Optimize Employee time Utilization
- Handle Multiple Time Zone and Languages
- Reduce Cost-per Interaction
Advanced Analytics:
A modern contact center will strive to raise performance levels with advanced technology like analytics. Analytics help to measure patient experience and agent performance by analyzing real data and improve on them. Such a contact center will always be able to build strong in-house talent capabilities that can be easily aligned with your healthcare businesses strategic goals. Contact center analytics come in many hues like speech analytics, text analytics, self-service analytics, predictive analytics, cross channel analytics, desk top analytics etc. Look for a partner that banks on each of these analytics to deliver value to its clients.
Benefits of Advanced Analytics
- Personalize and integrate communication
- Predict patients at higher risk quickly
- Get accurate insights into patient cohorts
- Get real-time alerts on equipment maintenance
| Did You Know According to Salesforce, nearly 75% of consumers want a consistent experience across multiple engagement channels. In case the experience isn’t consistent 73% will likely change brands. (Salesforce) |
Healthcare Industry Integrations:
The best call centers today are integrated with CRMs, medical billing, EHRs, and other technology, all designed to streamline operations and deliver great patient experience. Only a contact center which is integrated with the right technology can improve services in relation to access, quality and efficiency. For instance. A well-integrated contact center is always in a position to get a great summary view of the patient and provide precise support in terms of ongoing communication and continuity of care. You must look for integrations for all cloud-based applications, proprietary applications, on-premise applications, open-source applications etc.
Benefits of Application Integration
- Easy access to shared data
- Integrated environment with seamless workflow
- Comprehensive summarized view of information
- Simpler and convenient operations
Industry-Specific Compliance
The HIPAA Omnibus, have made the security and privacy provisions of HIPAA more complex. This means a provider must not just take stringent controls in information security but also ensure their partner is equally compliant. A modern-day healthcare contact center must therefore have sufficient technical, administrative, and physical safeguards in place to make sure that security and confidentiality of all healthcare information. This means giving limited access to patient health information, ensuring all transactions are compliant, imparting regular HIPAA education etc. To improve confidentiality and safeguard information, you must check if your partner is implementing policies in keeping with ISO 27001:2013 standards.
Benefits of HIPAA Compliant Contact Center
- Reduced Costs of Operations
- Reduced Administrative Burdens
- Reduced Chances of Violations
- Improved Privacy and Security
Conclusion
While assessing each of these is very important, there is yet another parameter along which you need to measure the readiness of your contact center – practices it follows. A modern-day healthcare contact center will design and follow industry best practices to meet and maintain client expectations. This includes proper onboarding process with optimum training, proper documentation methods to align with your business objectives, a robust and evolving quality management process, latest report generation process, flexible communication channels, proper staff retention policy, etc.
Who We are and What Makes Us an Expert?
MedBilling Experts is a healthcare BPO service provider that also specializes in healthcare call center. We have a long history of partnering with hospitals and clinics to simplify the care delivery process and take patient experience to new levels. Our complete range of patient engagement solutions and unique CRM-driven process will get you on the road to improved patient engagement and satisfaction. We bank on timely, seamless and up-to-date communications to assist you stay ahead of competition. If your healthcare business is looking to drive patient satisfaction and retention talk to us now.
