With a shortage of practitioners and a downward push on costs, the call center is poised to come to the rescue
By Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD
It’s a bold statement to claim that call centers are the future solution to healthcare’s present problems. But it’s what I believe. And more and more people in the healthcare industry are believing it every day too. Here’s why:
Contain Costs
The healthcare industry is under extreme pressure to hold costs down. One way to do this is to outsource calls to professional communicators at healthcare call centers. Let healthcare practitioners and staff do what they do best, and let call centers handle their calls for them. It saves money and frees healthcare staff to focus on patients and providing care.
Counter Staff Shortages
We currently have a shortage of doctors, and projections indicate the shortage will increase. Also, some geographic areas suffer from a shortage of nurses, and no one expects this to get better either. Given these shortages of key personnel, it makes sense to keep them off the phones and outsource as much telephone work as possible to healthcare call centers, with agents who can do the work faster and more economically.
Increase Availability
The medical answering service has long been a cost-effective way to extend patient availability past normal office hours. It makes medical practices, clinics, and hospitals available to patients around-the-clock, 24/7. More recently, telephone triage operations have also made healthcare support available by telephone anytime of the day or night. Though this isn’t currently available to all people in all places, it will change. It must.
Retain Patients
Patients increasingly have a consumer mind-set when it comes to healthcare. Loyalty to their providers is no longer as strong as it once was. They’ll switch caregivers over the smallest of slights, which often occurs when they can’t get the assistance they want, when they want it. That’s why 24/7 phone coverage is essential to retain patients in today’s marketplace. The healthcare call center is primed to accomplish this.
Serve More People
Telehealth is another exciting healthcare development in the call center industry. With telehealth—of which telephone triage serves as the entry point—remote populations can now receive cost-effective service. No longer will people in rural areas need to drive long distances to access the healthcare system. Instead they’ll start with their phone. And if they have a smartphone, they can do a video chat, which aids remotely located practitioners in making more informed recommendations.
Let Specialists Specialize
In medicine we have many types of specialists. These highly trained individuals focus on one area, which allows them to serve a niche market better and faster than a general practitioner. Let’s expand this thought to the healthcare call center. The healthcare call center stands as the communication specialist for the healthcare industry. Just as there are benefits of going with a medical specialist, so too there are benefits of going with a healthcare communications specialist.
Conclusion
These exciting opportunities and the compelling outcomes they can provide show us how important healthcare call centers are to the healthcare industry. This applies both now and in the future. And while the demand for these healthcare call center specialists is great now, it will be even greater in the future.
Peter Lyle DeHaan, PhD, is the publisher and editor-in-chief of Connections Magazine, covering the call center industry.
Read his latest book, Call Center Connections.
