Serving the Customer in Every Patient

By Gregory VandenBosch, President & Co-founder, MedDirect

There is a fundamental change occurring within the healthcare industry that is rapidly shifting more of the financial responsibility for medical services to patients. In fact, patients’ payment responsibility has grown by 300 percent in the last five years and most providers are only just beginning to experience the impact that this shift has on their finances and operations. As consumer-driven products (HSAs, HRAs and other plans with high deductibles and high levels of co-insurance) and other retail health initiatives continue to gain traction, some experts project patient payments as a percent of a provider’s total revenue will increase to approximately 40 percent by 2012.

This change presents a major challenge to providers because compared with health plan payments that generally arrive quickly and reliably, payments from patients require more work and often necessitate specialized software and staff.  Unfortunately, most healthcare organizations to date haven’t developed the adequate business-to-consumer tools and processes required to manage a large number of highly diverse patient payers and have failed to address the fundamental reasons why patients don’t pay – poor communication and education, confusing invoices/data and limited payment options.

It may sound a bit odd to talk about managing your patient’s “experience” when you're attempting to collect a debt, but in fact, that’s just what one must do. A lot of companies have said that it can cost five times more to acquire new customers than the cost of retaining current customers. In fact, many healthcare organizations now consider the lifetime value of their patient base as a primary financial lever in capital transactions and debt ratings. So, even when collecting a debt, it’s important to make every effort to avoid losing a good patient.

This makes loyalty a key focus, particularly in a mature industry such as healthcare. In healthcare, a zero sum game is in effect. It’s not just that you lose a patient – it’s that your competitor gains one of your former patients. In this case, patient loyalty becomes an even more critical component of your long-term profitability picture.

The right solution must bridge the gap between the need for patient payments and delivering a good patient experience. This raises the question: What communication and contact strategies can you employ to consistently deliver a positive experience without compromising your collections performance? In fact, these two elements are not mutually exclusive.

COMMUNICATION STRATEGIES TO IMPROVE THE PATIENT EXPERIENCE

Traditional methods of communication, such as contact center agents and direct mail, play an important role in customer communication, but they are not capable of shouldering all your communications. With more than 90 percent of the U.S. population communicating via mobile phones and text messaging, healthcare providers need to adopt a communications strategy that makes use of all technology channels.

For example, automated communication through voice, email and text not only compliments your existing resources, making them more efficient and profitable, but also provides you with a more cost effective way to engage your patients and solve several business problems, many of which you may not realize exist. Such solutions also enable you to tailor each message to a particular demographic segment, even down to the level of an individual patients’ preferences.

                 

WHY USE AUTOMATED PATIENT COMMUNICATIONS?

When we discuss using automated outbound calling solutions, one of the most frequently asked questions we hear sounds something like this: “C’mon, people don’t really listen to those automated calls, they just hang up, right? Why would my patients want to listen to a robot voice– it’s tough enough getting them to listen to our agents?” Of course, if the answer to that question were “Yep. They hang up,” then we wouldn’t have the success we’ve been having.

Using this approach, companies can routinely achieve results far above the numbers achievable when using agents to manually call patients. Why? In our deployments, we have uncovered three main factors:

• First, when dealing with a live agent, patients will sometimes make promises to pay just to be done with an awkward conversation.

• Second, an agent could be aggressive in getting a promise over ending the call without a commitment from the patient. Automated communications does not ‘push’ promises to pay, but offers patients the option professionally and courteously at exactly the right time, as defined by best practices and business rules.

• Third, patients are less likely to lie to an automated call.

        

We have even heard that patients might prefer automated communications, for many of the reasons above. According to a study commissioned by Varolii, Inc. last year, 77 percent of consumers would welcome a personalized call in the form of an automated phone call or message. 

Interactive communications are always consistent, professional, easy to listen to and never have a “bad day”.  They perform exactly as designed, each and every time. The benefit is clear. Each time the system communicates with your patient, it is as though they were speaking with one of your best patient representatives.

THE BOTTOM LINE

Working effectively with patients who owe you money is a tricky proposition. But, it’s more important than ever to enhance your communications efforts to retain your patients.  It’s critical to success that healthcare providers deliver the right message, in the right tone of voice, saying the right things, at the right time, to the right patient. Using automated communications in your contact center will allow you to reach more customers and, in an affordable way.