Patients and caregivers call hospitals for many reasons, including to make an appointment, inquire about a loved one’s condition, ask for a prescription refill, get directions, or in a medical emergency. Answering the phone and navigating callers to the right resources is a complex process in a large health system. Underperformance has major cost implications because hundreds of millions of calls are handled each year across the continuum of care. Rising consumerism in healthcare means that people are more motivated than ever to choose healthcare brands that offer a better experience and a higher quality of care. Organizations that empower consumers to access and manage their healthcare quickly and easily in whatever channels they choose, will become the leaders of the healthcare ecosystem.
At a time when it’s easy to schedule an appointment online, the majority of healthcare consumers still want to talk to a human being. Eighty-eight percent of healthcare appointments are still scheduled by phone and that process takes eight minutes on average! Health systems that don’t figure out how to best manage the balance between automation and human support will lose money, have lower patient satisfaction scores, perhaps trigger lower CMS reimbursement rates, and risk losing patients altogether.
In today’s post-pandemic climate, hospitals are especially challenged by persistent labor shortages, high burnout rates, and strained budgets. Once qualified new hires are found, retaining them is the next challenge. Contact center and switchboard employees are essential to maintain patient satisfaction, but increases in demand make it impossible for those employees to keep up with high call volume. Finding a solution for providing better patient experiences and quicker access to care despite less staff — and less money — is table stakes in 2024.
Healthcare consumers deserve to be treated with empathy and respect. Retail outlets like cable companies and airlines often anger customers, who complain that they’re treated impersonally, as if they don’t matter. But, should individuals who are ill, or those seeking care for a sick child be treated with as little care? When you or a loved one is sick, it’s important to speak to an individual who can empathize and support you. Patients and caregivers are often stressed, anxious, and maybe even afraid. Those callers need to be connected to a human being who has the bandwidth and temperament to attend to their needs efficiently and with compassion.
While there is a need to talk with a live person in many healthcare scenarios, more than 50% of calls that come into hospitals and clinics are for routine services. Generative IVRs (interactive voice response) and conversational IVAs (intelligent virtual assistants) can easily be used for automated call routing, answering frequently asked questions, managing appointments, getting directions, learning visiting hours, and more. When callers can use their voices to self-serve, it alleviates the burden on employees, giving operators and agents more bandwidth for callers who need it.
Old fashioned IVRs provide constrained choices, often in the form of a long list of menu options forcing users to navigate by pressing certain numbers or saying specific key words or phrases. Callers inevitably get frustrated after being led in circles and escape the call maze by smashing “0” or yelling “operator” — among other words not fit for print — into the phone. Patients are not patient with the process, which can be inefficient and infuriating. Sixty percent of callers won’t wait on hold for more than one minute without hanging up and some won’t call back. Healthcare organizations that continue to allow phone calls to be placed on hold are throwing away money.
Older patients and those who aren’t computer-savvy often struggle with patient portals. Remembering a username and password can be a challenge for these individuals, and that’s before they even access the platform itself to seek lab results, schedule a new appointment, or access medical records. Many vulnerable and disadvantaged populations rely on the phone because it’s all that’s available to them. Website chatbots don’t help individuals who can’t or don’t use them. When there is too much friction in the patient journey:
• Fewer appointments are scheduled
• Health systems face lower revenue
• Healthcare consumers feel frustrated
• Patients are more likely to seek another provider, or move to another healthcare brand
In order to have a frictionless digital front door and serve all patients well, CIOs must balance the need for ongoing operational efficiency with the pursuit of transformative digital health solutions. Regardless of the way consumers choose to connect to care, meeting people where they are is key! Promoting health equity requires healthcare organizations to be responsible for reducing barriers to access. Patients and caregivers can’t be forced to use a method they’re not comfortable using or they may delay or even forgo care, which will contribute to poor health outcomes.
Parlance, a leader in the healthcare IT space, works with many of the largest health systems in the country to alleviate contact center and switchboard burdens. More than a thousand hospitals and clinics partner with Parlance to digitize the voice channel, improve patient experience, and create operational efficiency.
Parlance can be used to address a wide range of hospital call interaction needs. By utilizing conversational IVRs and IVAs, Parlance easily connects callers to the people and resources they need, answers FAQs, verifies callers, and handles many appointment management tasks. Callers speak in their normal voices, ask for what they need, and accomplish many routine tasks.
Phone calls to healthcare organizations have surged and they won’t be slowing down anytime soon. Patient interaction volume is on the rise. ‘Hospital at home’ models will generate more frequent outpatient engagement. Consumer trends for Gen Z show that more than 70% believe that live phone calls are the most convenient way to get to the heart of a customer service matter. Gen X’ers are at a stage in their lives when their own healthcare issues are on the rise, and they must juggle their own needs with those of their children and aging parents — so ease of communication is a high priority.
Automating routine calls and transactions delivers immediate ROI. Contact center and switchboard operations are optimized when calls are handled more efficiently. For example, the Parlance IVA handled over 15,000 patient verifications for a mid-sized health system in the western U.S., in the first 30 days it was implemented. In addition, the IVA handled thousands of FAQs, appointment cancellations and confirmations. These improvements saved over a thousand hours of human labor for this health system in the first month!
Organizations can start small when scaling generative IVR and conversational IVA technologies. A phased approach provides a steady stream of improvements – a win for patients and a win for the business.
“Parlance solutions help health systems better stay on their mission to deliver great patient care and experiences. Our effective conversational automation improves patient satisfaction and allows valued staff to work more efficiently at top of license,” said Joseph Maxwell, Chief Executive Officer at Parlance. “We have long-standing relationships with leading healthcare CIOs across the country who depend on us to deliver immediate ROI by enabling modern automation in their voice channel.”
