7 Best Practices For Healthcare Call Centers

Healthcare call centers are customer service centers that are attached internally or affiliated with hospitals. These generally help hospitals handle the various incoming calls they receive related to medical appointments and services provided, among others.

They also provide information about the following, storing it in a centralised repository:

• Online messaging.
• Patient demographics.
• Medical records in one place, etc.

Now, contact centers specialised in healthcare serve special functions. They are not only in charge of appointments, but also of the selection of nurses and advertising strategies. Simply put, they are multi-departmental and are responsible for the following:

• Home telemedicine.
• Home health care services.
• Emergency medical services, etc.

7 Best Practices For Healthcare Call Centers

1) Staffing and Scheduling

Healthcare call centers must have the appropriate number of personnel who have the necessary skills according to their designation to respond to customer queries.

You should also have a well-planned scheduling strategy that considers the following to ensure that patient calls are answered quickly and efficiently:

• Peak calling hours.
• Shift coverage.
• Staff breaks.

2) Privacy and Security of Patient Data

The sensitive nature of patient information requires strict measures to ensure data privacy and security. Therefore, it is essential to train healthcare call center staff to properly manage and protect patient data.

3) Quality Assurance and Monitoring

Effective quality control and assurance can help identify areas for improvement and ensure that contact center agents provide quality services. To do this, it is necessary to monitor the following aspects:

• Contact center data.
• Provide feedback to agents.
• Address any issues or gaps in the performance of your duties.

4) Continuous Improvement

Regularly evaluating call center performance and identifying areas for improvement can help improve patient satisfaction and outcomes.

This evaluation can be carried out through:

• Collecting patient feedback.
• Implementation of new technologies.
• Training and continuous development of call center staff.

5) HIPAA Compliance

Keeping patient data safe and secure is one of the most basic and crucial aspects of a healthcare call center. Therefore, its compliance by call centers is very important.

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) was passed in 1996 to safeguard an individual’s health information at all times.

Requires healthcare providers and organisations, and their business associates, to ensure the security of protected health information (PHI) when it is transferred, handled, or shared.

It also regulates industry-wide standards for healthcare information regarding electronic billing and other processes. This has led to a reduction in cases of healthcare fraud and abuse by enforcing these standards.

6) Personalisation and Empathy

Empathy is essential to building fluid communication and a positive customer experience. While you cannot imagine being sick or ill, some tips you can follow to express empathy in such situations are:

• You cannot appear robotic with patients, nor can you be stern and imposing.
• You may have to apologise in some situations if patients feel wronged.
• Provide first aid advice when necessary.
• Maintain a polite and positive tone.
• Use statements of empathy to avoid any conflict between patient and provider, etc.

7) Multichannel Support

One of the best practices in a medical call center is to reach patients or clients through each and every possible communication channel. To do this, contact centers must focus on improving their support workflows via SMS, email and calls.

This is because calls have become the preferred method of making inquiries due to the growth in the number of mobile phone users.

However, it is easier to work with the SMS support channel, since the advantage of this service is the high SMS open rate.

So, it is best to accompany SMS and emails with the calling strategy, since it also opens preferences to clients or patients, making them easily contactable through their preferred channel.