First Pst after migration to Cloud in Health care Blog

Due to COVID-19 and the subsequent delay of elective procedures, many healthcare providers today are struggling to ensure their patient populations are getting the care they need. While online scheduling and referral coordination solutions can no doubt help improve patient access, especially as those who cancelled or postponed appointments look to reschedule, it’s the use of automated outreach combined with the ability to schedule appointments in real-time that can take it one step further and help providers close gaps in care. Automated outreach via interactive voice response (IVR) and text messaging (SMS) is now effectively closing gaps in care and streamlining the entire scheduling process from start to finish. Healthcare organizations leveraging automated outreach are seeing numerous benefits. Among them: Extended Outreach Capabilities – An automated and technologically advanced outreach system has far greater capacity to reach patients, when compared to the bandwidth of traditional call centers. The system enables thousands of automated calls per day that don’t require an agent to personally facilitate. Increased Appointment Bookings – Reaching more patients means more successfully booked appointments, and in turn, fewer gaps in care. Our technology successfully automates the process all the way through the booking itself, scheduling far more appointments with much less effort. Higher Patient Satisfaction – Automated outreach ensures that patients are notified on-time about any necessary follow-up care, and then provides the opportunity to quickly and easily book appointments that fit their schedule. This convenience and simplicity fosters patient engagement and satisfaction. Using a targeted outreach list, an automated calling and texting system manages the bookings, coordination and follow-up, completely lifting the burden off of the organization and its call center. Additionally, this type of technology can track metrics (i.e. response rates, booking rates, opt-outs, etc.) in real-time, allowing health plans to easily identify areas for improvement and make the necessary changes to their processes. For these reasons – as well as the benefits outlined above – a growing list of both providers, payers and ACOs are choosing to employ automated outreach technology today. Learn more about automated outreach and how it fits into an omnichannel access strategy.

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With so many complexities surrounding deductibles, premiums, copays and more, consumers sometimes struggle to understand the financial components of their health plans and are often unaware of the out of pocket for their healthcare needs. Recognizing that confusion about healthcare costs can make it difficult for consumers to ask the right questions, define priorities and take a more active role in their healthcare, Silver Cross Hospital made a point to educate and provide its patient base with health care estimates prior to service being rendered. With the Self-Service Patient Estimates tool from Experian Health, patients of Silver Cross Hospital now have a consumer-friendly, easy-to-use and accessible path to obtain out of pocket cost estimates. The Self-Service Patient Estimates tool works both with the hospital’s electronic medical record (EMR) and as a standalone tool for the community to use when needed. Integrating with Silver Cross Hospital’s EMR, the solution calculates estimates based on the hospital’s charge master pricing information and payer contracted rates and utilizes each patient’s individual eligibility and benefits information to create specific out of pocket costs. The tool also allows for detailed and accurate estimate creation using historical claims data to determine the typical procedures and related charges to generate average out of pocket cost estimates by health plan. Accessible via the hospital’s website, the tool acts as a digital front door in the patient exploratory process. Patients can obtain an out-of-pocket estimate any time of day or night, and as part of the process are then connected to the next place of service, whether that be to schedule an appointment, ask additional questions or obtain more information. Since implementing Patient Estimates, Silver Cross Hospital has: Increased point of service (POS) collections by bringing more awareness and education of out of pocket costs to patients upfront Reduced inbound calls and queries to the organization regarding cost estimates Integrated the solution into scheduling and pre-registration workflows within the EMR Reduced time spent training staff on other systems or workflows Learn more about Patient Estimates and how we can help create accurate estimates of authorized services for patients before, or at the point-of-service. “Patient Estimates acts a great digital front door for Silver Cross Hospital, facilitating that first step in the patient exploratory process.” – Miguel Vigo IV, Administrator Director Revenue Cycle, Silver Cross Hospital