In the healthcare industry, healthcare call centers have a distinct purpose. They serve as lifelines to enhance an individual’s health, help individuals navigate the health system & are fundamental to a great patient experience.
This makes healthcare call center services unique when compared to typical consumer-facing call centers for other industries. When a patient tries to contact their local healthcare provider, they are not calling to enquire about your product and services. Rather they are calling for health issues, to find a doctor, or for an emergency.
Due to this reason, the best healthcare call centers try to focus on emotional connection, trust, relationship-building, and empathy. Your ultimate goal should be to help individuals take control of their health through timely outreach, relevant resources, and helpful call center agents. Undoubtedly, the call center team is a crucial aspect of your health system’s patient engagement strategy.
However, setting these standards may not be easy to meet. While there exist multiple benefits of having strong healthcare call center services, leading one is fraught with challenges. Let us take a closer look at the intricacies of offering call center services to patients and consumers.
Benefits of healthcare call centers:
Your call center is much more than a scheduling or an answering service. In addition, offering a central place for patients to engage with your healthcare system, imparts several benefits that are important to acquiring, engaging, and retaining patients. Here are four key benefits:
Increased patient engagement:
Your agents are at the front of patient engagement. Whether it be a caller’s first interaction with the call center or their one hundredth, it is always important that agents help drive their engagement. And while there are myriad ways for patients and consumers to interact with their health system, many still choose to communicate on the phone. In fact, 85% of patients still prefer to schedule their appointments by telephone.
Leading healthcare call center services with expert agents who can answer caller questions on the fly is key to keeping patients and consumers engaged with the healthcare system. For example, a call center agent with a detailed caller profile could offer suggestions to help patients keep pace with their health, perhaps by reminding them they are late for screening. This personalized focus will help patients feel seen and understood by your healthcare system.
Enhanced Patient Satisfaction:
A patient’s very first experience with your healthcare system often involves your call center. For that reason, healthcare systems looking to improve patient satisfaction must focus on building a high-quality call center experience.
Two of the essential factors in improving a patient’s satisfaction are skilled, competent agents and a personalized patient experience. You can achieve both at the same time by giving your agents easy access to caller information. If your call center agent is aware of a consumer’s health and engagement history, they will have the knowledge that is necessary to provide a highly personalized experience, thereby increasing the caller’s level of satisfaction.
Better Patient Retention through Follow-ups:
Healthcare call center services also play a significant role in patient retention. When your call center agent keeps the patient engaged through various tactics such as relevant event outreach and post-discharge follow-up, the patient will have a clear path to continue their healthcare journey within your health system.
In addition, a good follow-up strategy helps you provide proactive patient care. For example, agents can refer to the profile and see if a patient is pending an annual appointment. Then, the agent can address the patient on a first-name basis and ensure they receive timely care. This approach to contact center services helps to build patient loyalty in your health system.
Greater ROI
The correlation between return on investment and healthcare call centers is not apparent. However, call centers can actually generate an ROI of three to one, according to McKesson. In doing so, they are driving both patient loyalty and revenue.
There are quite a few reasons why high-quality engagement enhances ROI. If a patient gets tip-notch assistance when they need it most, they will continue to seek services from that provider. Furthermore, a good experience for callers will result in an improved brand perception — and possibly even a boon of new patients onboard due to positive word-of-mouth recommendations. Combined, these factors will increase your return on investment.
Getting started with healthcare call center services:
Your healthcare contact center is often the first point of interaction for a patient with your health system. Due to this, there is a glaring opportunity for agents to provide a great first impression that will help in improving patient engagement & satisfaction. If this opportunity is seized and further supported with data-driven technology & processes. Your call center will have an overwhelmingly positive impact on patient acquisition & retention initiatives.
