{"id":29780,"date":"2020-10-09T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-10-09T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/answerstat.com\/?p=29780"},"modified":"2021-06-07T16:05:10","modified_gmt":"2021-06-07T20:05:10","slug":"healthcare-call-centers-problems","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/answerstat.com\/article\/healthcare-call-centers-problems\/","title":{"rendered":"A Problem\u2014and Opportunity\u2014for Healthcare Call Centers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n\n\n\n

<\/div><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n

By Greg Kefer<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Your phone starts ringing, you drop what you\u2019re doing, look at the screen, and see a call from some odd number from a faraway place. Or worse yet, it says \u201cScam Likely!\u201d I\u2019m rarely in the mood to listen to some foreign language robot or get rich pitch. Phone calls that matter have increasingly become the minority.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to estimates<\/a>, US mobile phone users were exposed to 48 billion robocalls in 2018, which means that every time the phone rings, there\u2019s a 50 percent chance it\u2019s a spam robocall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Training the Masses to Decline Calls<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

There are few viable solutions available for blocking 100 percent of these annoying intrusions, so the best option when that unknown phone number shows on the caller ID is to simply hit the decline button and move on with whatever you were doing. Robocalls are creating anti-call center muscle memory across the entire mobile phone user population.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The shunning of annoying telemarketing cold calls is not a new thing. But thanks to robocall automation, the surge of incoming noise has become so intense, there\u2019s little chance a consumer will pause and consider the possibility that an incoming call might actually matter. This is a problem for the healthcare industry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Call centers have always been a big part of the healthcare patient experience. Challenges with being on hold, ineffective agents, and general customer dissatisfaction with call centers are well documented. But what about the outbound side?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Challenge for Healthcare Call Centers<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The healthcare industry is investing heavily in engaging patients, and call centers are a big piece of that strategy. Outbound calling campaigns help patients navigate their care, set appointments, take medicines, or check in after a visit. These are potentially important touch points. If people stop answering their phones, what happens? Email outreach is frequently intercepted by spam filters, secure messaging is clunky, and most patients don\u2019t log into their healthcare portals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At call centers, human capacity has always been a constraint. When it comes to dealing with healthcare situations, there have not been a lot of viable automation options that blend a quality, well-designed engagement experience with a high-scale system. Anybody that has received a robocall doctor\u2019s appointment reminder knows how disengaging it is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The healthcare industry faces a challenge when it comes to reaching out to patients, often for critical issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n