October 1, 2012 •Brian Watson
When it comes to patient billing, great service is a must.
That’s because questions and issues are inevitable. No matter how through, or patient friendly, or easy-to-understand-and-use your patient statements might be, support opportunities will be plentiful. Patients will have questions: about insurance payments, their contribution, their bill, where and how to pay, the cost of their treatment, and the financial support services you offer. Plus any number of additional quandaries, queries, and problems.
And while phone support is a critical tool used by healthcare providers to provide patient billing and financial help (and, if done well, can help boost patient satisfaction and brand equity), it can also be pretty expensive.
According to Forrester Research 85% of customer communication is completed via the telephone. And the cost-per-call to a customer service representative can be $5 or more (depending on the scope and complexity of the service request). For a hospital that treats millions of patients each year, those costs can be staggering: thousands and thousands of dollars added to patient billing overhead.
What’s the solution? Well, focusing on patient statement design to improve readability and lessen bill confusion is a good low-cost option. Unfortunately – when it comes to reducing potential patient call-ins - it’s also fairly low-impact.
IVR is a great way to lower per-call-costs (to as low as $0.50 a call, according to Forrester Research). But forcing patients to navigate a tricky maze of phone prompts every time they make a support call can have unintended consequences, like harming patient satisfaction and brand loyalty. For example, Consumer Reports found that 56% of consumers were “tremendously annoyed” about having to take multiple phone steps.
Responsive, Efficient, Accountable: Online Patient Support
One impactful but still-relatively-under-the-radar suggestion we endorse: beefing up your online support toolset. Why? Well, 75% of consumers would prefer to use online customer support tools over any offline option, according to the 2012 Amdocs Coleman Parkes study. And 57% of consumers head online first when they have a problem with a product or service, reports the 2012 Sitel Study.
In short: your patients already use your webpage to access health and facility information and use online tools. And they want to control their service experience online (and at their own pace). Which is why web support - if done correctly - can be so valuable.
The tricky part for healthcare providers? Ensuring HIPAA privacy laws are upheld. That patient financial communication with your support staff is appropriately protected. And that the feedback loop remains responsive and simple to access and use.
That’s where online billing and payment applications can play a key role. EBPP solutions already have strong, HIPPA compliant security built-in to handle patient encounter data and balance payment. And because they’re tied to the patient’s account (and authorized email), messages can easily be tracked and followed-up on by your patients and staff alike.
Read on for 10 ways that customer service tools built into an online billing and payment platform can benefit both your organization’s patients and its patient support procedures.
Benefits for Providers
Remember earlier when I talked about just how expensive phone support can be? Well online service is a great way to take the sting out of the $5 (or more) it costs your organization each time a representative fields a patient call. EBPP-enabled online support helps streamline workflow and isn’t plagued by the kind of vagaries and misunderstandings that have led 67% of consumers to report hanging up on customer service without having their issue resolved (according to a 2011 Consumer Reports survey). It works because:
1). Unlike phone calls into your patient service center, online help can be placed into buckets to provide a more efficient and manageable workflow that streamlines patient service operations. EBPP chat can give used for patients with “emergency” questions or issues, while a high-medium-low priority designation on all messaging/communication forms helps your staff plan all other patient follow-up accordingly.
2). Online communication enables the kind of accountability that’s the foundation of great service: providing a trackable, easy-to-reference message trail that allows for further explanation, feedback, and follow-up with patients. The result is a quantifiable difference in patient satisfaction with their service experience.
3). Online support doesn’t require service reps to be immediately on-hand to respond to phone calls to your service center, reducing overhead and freeing up employees to handle other mission-critical tasks.
4). Trackable messaging enables transferability of accounts between multiple service reps and reduces the potential for duplication of effort.
5). Because all service messaging is archived by the EBPP application for future review, online support is ideal for auditing the efficiency of support procedures and performance.
Benefits for Patients
Online customer support is an ideal way to simplify your internal patient support practices and reduce service overhead. But it has additional security, trackability, and convenience benefits over traditional voice-based support that help make the process as simple and painless as possible for patients, too. That includes:
1). Online support is always “on”. Patients often view and pay bills after traditional work hours, when your support staff is done for the day. Online communication enables patients to log support issues at any time convenient to them.
2). Conversations are automatically logged in the portal so that both your staff and patients are on the same page of the discussion at all times.
3). Patients control the flow of the conversation - using tools like real-time chat for “emergency” issues or online messaging for less pressing topics.
4). Email notifications automatically alert patients when a service employee has posted a follow-up message, keeping them in the middle of the feedback loop at all times.
5). Hosting help communication in an EBPP environment offers the security and HIPAA compliancy necessary for patients to discuss sensitive financial or encounter data online.
Enabling superlative customer service is just another way that eStatement applications can help boost patient satisfaction and improve your bottom line. If you’d like to more about how to master efficient web support, call 1.800.276.6456 or contact us online here.
What other non-EBPP forms of online support is your organization currently using?