Mar 24 2016 The Growing Need For Contact Centers In Healthcare
As Healthcare organizations look to streamline operations and gain efficiencies, contact centers need to be implemented. I spend a lot of time consulting with healthcare organizations to build and improve contact centers. Amazingly, in healthcare there is still resistance to centralizing certain functions in a contact center. I hear things like “we’ve never needed a contact center before, why do I need it now”? Frequently the loudest voice of concern comes from the medical groups as many primary care physicians are not accustomed to working in large organizations where many back office items are staffed out and not under their direct control.
The fact is, over the past several years, healthcare has begun the same transformation many other industries have seen for decades – consolidation. From phone companies and cable companies to airlines and banks, nearly every major industry has gone through substantial consolidation in the last 30 years.
Now, for the first time consolidation has hit the Healthcare provider industry. Individual and small local physician’s practices are being sold and consolidated into larger Health networks, which provide everything from instant clinics and primary care physicians to triage and hospital-based specialty services.
It is this business transformation that drives the value and efficiency of a contact center for a Healthcare provider. Back office services like appointment scheduling, physician paging, class registration, billing and collections are obvious areas for implementing a contact center. Forward looking organizations would be wise evaluate contact center functions such as Telemedicine via Nurse Triage, Helpdesk services for web portal assistance, collecting co-pays and even marketing campaigns like patient enrollment.
In the past the receptionist or office manager would attempt to juggle many of these functions and frequently the nurses or practice physicians would need to get involved. By centralizing many of these functions in a contact center nurses and physicians can focus on performing medicine and efficiencies can be gained by sharing resources across multiple facilities.