Healthcare systems nationwide are experiencing a significant uptick in customer service calls due to the Covid pandemic, patient’s loss of jobs and insurance or salary reductions as well as many re-scheduled surgeries previously postponed. Calls from patients are not only higher in volume, but are lasting longer as patients have more questions regarding their financial obligations for their healthcare services.
BENEFITS OF OUTSOURCING CUSTOMER SERVICE CALLS
Many providers do not have budget dollars to hire additional staff to handle the increased call volume. This is where Hollis Cobb staff can assist. Our sophisticated call center technology allows us to take overflow customer service calls from any hospital regardless of location or computer system. Hollis Cobb can also take over a health system’s entire customer service department allowing the current staff to be redeployed to other areas of the organization. Our customer service program can enhance a provider’s services to patients by:
- Minimizing hold times and call abandonment rates
- Keeping call escalations to a minimum by providing staff to handle sensitive calls from patients with issues or concerns
- Following up on problem accounts requiring additional documentation or research
- Taking payments from patients and setting up payment plans
- Quickly filing insurance that was missed
- Providing staffing in areas with high employee turnover rates
ENHANCING THE PATIENT EXPERIENCE
We equip our staff to provide maximum assistance to the patients with whom we work nationwide. Our training department has enhanced the continuing education provided to Hollis Cobb employees. Trainers are now specifically addressing the areas in which patients seem to be most confused about their bills, and are training our staff to, not only collect money, but to explain to patients why the money is owed. Our representatives take the time to explain deductibles and other out of pocket expenses to patients as well as how to read an explanation of benefits. Once patients understand what and why they owe a balance, they are more likely to pay or set up a payment plan.
The Hollis Cobb Training and Compliance Department is constantly reviewing patient calls, coaching representatives and looking for ways to provide the best possible service to our clients and the patients they serve. In addition, Hollis Cobb provides clients with a wide variety of custom reports that detail key performance indicators, call volume statistics and return on investment for customer service projects.
The patient experience is vital to a healthy hospital system and outsourcing some customer service tasks can help providers keep their patient satisfaction scores strong. Today’s healthcare challenges often prohibit providers from increasing staff even when the patient population increases or changes. Hollis Cobb’s customer service program can help providers keep their patient satisfaction scores where they need to be to better serve their patient populations.
SUCCESSFUL RESULTS FOR CLIENTS
In every hospital system where Hollis Cobb staff is handling customer service overflow calls, our team has exceeded client expectations for number of calls handled and amount of dollars collected. Abandonment rates and hold times have been significantly reduced for our clients resulting in a better overall patient experience for each hospital’s patient population. Hollis Cobb management is able to provide our clients with detailed analysis reports showing call volumes and key performance indicators, and our clients have been pleased with our results. This service works particularly well with clients for whom we handle early out collections; however Hollis Cobb is able to provide the customer service overflow product to any hospital system in the U.S.
Hollis Cobb leadership communicates frequently with clients in order to stay on the leading edge of the evolving world of revenue cycle management. It is our goal to use all of the technology and resources at our disposal to help our clients operate as efficiently as possible in these challenging. Our clients have let us know that our expanded service offerings, like our customer service program, are highly valuable to them and have made a significant difference in their ability to generate maximum revenues for their organizations.
