In the healthcare industry, the primary goal is to ensure patient satisfaction with the service provided by the institution. In addition to advertisements and digital marketing, phone calls always come first. So, what are the healthcare call center best practices that reduce costs and increase patient satisfaction?
Read on as we focus on the most important factors contributing to better communication with patients and providing superior healthcare service.
Healthcare Call Center Best Practices
Several factors can help improve your healthcare call center operations, such as following HIPAA security protocols, increased empathy in patient communications, multilingual support, etc.
If you want to hire a third party to help you optimize your healthcare call center, consider the services CLICKVISION BPO offers. Through well-thought-out solutions tailored to your requirements, we offer an excellent outsourcing solution for your healthcare facility.
Follow HIPAA security protocols
Adherence to HIPAA rules is one of the most important factors on which the quality of call center service depends. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act refers to the security of patient data, that is, electronic personal health information (ePHI), at the disposal of the health facility.
Violating this law will lead to financial consequences for the healthcare facility and high fines. Patient trust will also be reduced, and the organization’s reputation will be diminished. In order to ensure data security, attention should be paid to the following:
- Encryption of all communications according to NIST standards.
- Designating authorized users who will have access to your private network.
- Regular staff training to regularly follow HIPAA rules.
- Implement a confidential information privacy policy.
Increase empathy in patient communication
Patients use healthcare call centers mostly for urgent medical problems, so the last thing they want to hear is unprofessional behavior from agents. Therefore, you should pay attention to training the agents to know how to handle patients.
- Pay close attention to the reason(s) the patient calls the call center.
- Be respectful and maintain eye contact if there is a video chat or face-to-face meeting.
- Allow the patient to ask additional and unclear questions.
Moreover, call agents should have knowledge of the medical facility and the staff involved to ask the necessary questions promptly. Also, knowing the call center software by the agents will increase their productivity and efficiency.
Update outdated communication systems
Using new platforms and modernizing is another way to increase patient communication when introducing healthcare call center best practices. Healthcare customer relationship management (CRM) will help you manage documents, schedule appointments, and share prescriptions and other patient-related information.
In addition, integrating CRM into your organization will allow your team to work at any time and from any place through mobile devices. In this way, the level of service will be raised, and communication with patients will be improved. You may get several benefits using such software, including:
Automating tasks
CRM allows you to automate and simplify tasks with just a few clicks. That means easier appointment scheduling, re-schedule visits, event reminders and other operations.
Data storage
The software enables the storage of important patient data. The CRM can save various data types, such as a patient’s medical history, previous appointments, prescriptions, missed appointments, etc. That way, doctors and health professionals might provide better patient treatment services.
Reducing workload
Customer relationship management in healthcare facilitates staff work, which enhances patient communication. This way, the agents’ workload is reduced, creating a more pleasant work environment without stress and additional pressures.
Following the health industry’s guidelines
The CRM software complies with healthcare industry protocols. It offers high privacy and protection of patients’ data. Additionally, CRM offers patient data encryption, making accessing patient data impossible unless the required password is entered.
Offer patients multiple communication options
Multiple ways of communicating with patients will significantly improve service and increase the organization’s reputation. Nowadays, different ways of communication are used, like email, video chat, phone, social media, etc.
By introducing different ways of communication, the patient may choose the most comfortable way of conversation. Moreover, it can be simpler to explain more complicated medical treatments using certain communication methods, such as video calls, than when discussing them over a phone call.
Multilingual support
Many patients may come from diverse origins and do not speak English as their first language. Therefore, consider introducing multilingual support to improve the quality of call center services in healthcare facilities.
For this purpose, hire professionals who know two or more languages. In addition to English, it is good to have agents who know Spanish, German, Mandarin, and Arabic. Also, if you have an app that makes it easier for patients to communicate with your organization, add a multi-language option.
In that way, patients will get to know the services you provide more easily and will be able to get in touch with your organization more easily. It will also set you apart from the competition as an organization that cares about its patients.
Monitor call quality
Monitoring the quality of the call is necessary to improve the quality of communication with patients. So, recording all incoming and outgoing calls for patients to receive the necessary service is a good idea.
Furthermore, attention should be paid to the call center agents’ feedback. Direct communication allows agents to get first-hand information about the phrases that work best when communicating with patients.
Such a practice will enable a more professional attitude towards customers and quality service. Appropriate phrases and terms in patient conversation can be used when training new agents. In this way, agents will acquire valuable skills that will help them more easily respond to the challenges they face in the workplace.
Division of responsibilities
It is good to divide the responsibilities of the staff to achieve maximum professionalism and organization in the workplace. You can separate them into departments like radiology, hematology, cardiology, etc.
That way, you will allocate agents according to their expertise. You can also make such a categorization with the staff who manage the social networks. You can hire people who only manage email marketing and others with Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.
Gather and listen to patient feedback
Since patients are the main focus of a healthcare call center, their feedback on your services is very important. To get feedback on the quality of the service, you can offer surveys to your users.
That way you will get useful information about the quality of the current services you offer and the professionalism of the employees. The surveys can help you improve patient interactions and introduce operations innovations. That way, you will raise your services to a new level and get satisfied patients.
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Conclusion
Knowledge of healthcare call center best practices will enable you to raise the service to a new level and thereby get satisfied patients. Although the management of the call center can generally handle the challenges it brings, sometimes it is necessary to engage a third party service provider to help optimize the processes.
By hiring an outsourcing brand like CLICKVISION BPO, you can more easily overcome the problems that arise during the work. Our solutions will be tailored to your requirements!