In a world of fraud risks and complex claims systems, there’s a lot to address when you run a healthcare organization. Hospitals, medical centers, and healthcare systems are all facing pressure on the front lines. The result is often felt first by patients—and then by clinics struggling to keep up.
That’s why the role of outsourced contact centers in healthcare is expanding. You might be surprised by some of the industry-specific challenges a well-trained call center agent can resolve.
Explore Lighthouse Enterprises’ Healthcare Industry Call Center Services.
The High Cost of Inefficient Access: Identifying the Bottlenecks
Below are some of the biggest challenges the healthcare industry is experiencing today. Are any of them affecting your organization’s performance?
Inefficiencies that Hinder Appointment Scheduling
One major challenge healthcare organizations face is appointment oversight. Hospitals and clinics must manage a continuous flow of appointment schedule changes and cancellations, and reschedules across multiple departments. Locations and operating hours must be precise since delays and no-shows can have a rippling effect that pulls clinic staff away from patient in-person care. Over time, scheduling inefficiencies can lower patient retention as well as revenue.
Patient Portals and EMR-Related Demands
Technology adds another layer of complexity to your outsourcing needs. Having a high-functioning patient access system is essential to patient access. Many healthcare systems rely on patient portals like MyChart to streamline communication, yet even minor login issues and password resets can determine whether patient messages make it through. Live agents who are trained with the EMR system provide patients with accurate instructions with patience and empathy.
Keeping up with Insurance Verification, Registration, and Referrals
Registering patients and verifying their insurance can also delay doctor appointments if not handled promptly. Even if your system is streamlined, patients may have incomplete or inaccurate insurance information, which can lead to billing issues or denied claims that could delay life-saving treatments.
Compliance, Staffing, and Scaling Challenges
Communications in healthcare takes place under strict compliance requirements that outsourced contact centers are built to follow. Fraud prevention, HIPAA compliance, GDPR, and identity verification are all non-negotiable in healthcare environments. Instead of having to find and train temporary workers sporadically, a hospital or medical center can build a partnership with an outsourced contact center that already has expertise in those areas.
(Read about the white-glove service to expect from your contact center partner.)
How an Outsourced Healthcare Contact Center Closes the Gaps
A contact center specializing in healthcare addresses these challenges by taking on routine patient calls and requests, which reduces the burden on clinics.
Patient Support That Frees Up Clinics
Lighthouse Enterprises offers day-to-day support for a vast range of tasks including appointment scheduling and rescheduling, triage messaging, insurance verification, new patient registration, referral coordination, and patient portal assistance. Our agents can troubleshoot MyChart and other patient-facing portals. This frees up hospitals from having to authorize users or set up accounts. With our support, referrals are processed on time and clinics are able to respond to patients swiftly.
Integration of Customized Workflows
Large medical systems need a contact center with the flexibility to customize workflows according to medical specialty, department, location, and hours of operation. The teams at Lighthouse can do that while creating dedicated call queues that align with the client’s preferences. We work directly within leading EMR platforms, including Epic, Cerner, and Athena, ensuring that our agents follow established clinic protocols.
Healthcare-Specific Compliance & Quality Oversight
Best practices in compliance are foundational to our operations. We integrate essential components of quality oversight that extend well beyond HIPAA compliance. Our teams also prevent risk by verifying identities, following scripted communication, targeting suspicious activity and other security measures. Ongoing quality assurance monitoring and clear supervision help us ensure accuracy and consistency from day one.
Scalable Support With Measurable Results
Your contact center needs to scale along with you as you grow. Depending on the training requirements and team sizes, Lighthouse can typically scale healthcare staffing within four to six weeks—much faster than the usual internal hiring cycle. Today, our teams handle more than one million patient calls annually across over 50 of clinics and departments. For one large county health system, our contributions to a 5 percent reduction in appointment no-shows.
Explore our case studies to learn about other ways Lighthouse benefits clients in healthcare.
Lighthouse Enterprises in Chicago Addresses Your Healthcare Contact Center Needs
Do you want a more efficient communications system that is as accurate as it is compliant? The contact center support our healthcare clients receive reinforces their internal teams at every stage of the patient access experience.
Call Lighthouse Enterprises at (312) 447-3259 to set up a consultation about addressing all of your contact center needs.