Most healthcare companies agree that technology is now crucial to their day-to-day operations. The right tools and services help providers deliver exceptional care and ensure team leaders can keep their finger on the company’s growth, performance, and efficiency.
While you can probably name a handful of critical tools any healthcare company couldn’t live without, one essential element is frequently overlooked: the contact center.
Contact center technology is one of the most essential resources in any healthcare environment. It helps keep teams organized, strengthens connections between patients and clinicians, and essentially keeps the whole business operating like a machine.
How Healthcare Companies Use Contact Centers
Although healthcare companies might not utilize contact centers like retail or sales-oriented brand, they still rely heavily on them for day-to-day tasks.
The right contact center technology can help healthcare brands continue offering exceptional service during complex and unpredictable periods. More than 57% of healthcare professionals said their organization’s contact center ensured they could deliver a better patient experience during the pandemic.
Some of the core use cases for contact center technology in the healthcare industry include:
Providing patient support before, during, and after:
Providing excellent support is crucial to healthcare companies, just like for any brand. With the right contact center technology, healthcare brands can ensure they’re on hand to answer customer questions about health issues, arrange appointments with clinicians, and even follow up with reminders about upcoming appointments.
A contact center solution integrated with a CRM environment can even provide insights to professionals on when to follow up with patients about after-care following a procedure. Today’s tools allow healthcare professionals to connect with customers on all their preferred channels, whether offering telemedicine visits through video or sending text messages.
Connecting departments and divisions:
Today’s end-to-end contact center solutions can make unifying the distributed employees in the healthcare landscape easier. According to HIPAA requirements, it can provide companies with a secure and valuable place to store relevant information and collect patient details. Integrated CCaaS and UCaaS solutions can even give team members ways to collaborate.
Most importantly, omnichannel contact centers provide a comprehensive view of the complete patient journey, from showcasing upcoming appointments to making it easier to track patients in need of follow-up care. With dashboards and analytical tools, companies can use their contact center technology to leverage valuable insights into business performance.
Supporting payment and insurance processing:
Collecting finances for care provided is one of the most important functions any healthcare provider needs to address. The right contact center dashboards can make it easier to pinpoint precisely where money needs to be collected and when. With integrated access to patient details, users can easily track which insurance professionals to contact and which forms need to be filled out.
Contact center solutions can even come with secure payment processing tools, such as automated solutions allowing patients to securely provide payment details over the phone. Not only does the right software help minimize the risk of missed payments, but it can also make the collection process far more accessible and streamlined.
The Value of A Strong Healthcare Contact Center
While everyone will require healthcare at some point, they now have more options than ever when choosing where they get it. A great customer experience is what turns a patient into a long-term advocate for a company. The only way businesses can ensure they deliver trustworthy, personalized experiences to their customers is with the right technology.
An omnichannel contact center solution, which allows companies to connect with their customers on any channel, ensures customer service can be personalized to the needs of each client. A platform that integrates with an existing CRM solution can ensure healthcare businesses can collect valuable information about their patients securely to deliver a more personalized service.
Even the analytics technology built into a contact center can help businesses make intelligent decisions about how to grow and scale their services. In a world where 82% of patients agree quality service is the top thing they consider when looking for a care provider, today’s healthcare brands can’t afford to underestimate the value of their contact center.
