The IVR / Healthcare Connection

The healthcare industry has come under recent and repeated scrutiny for its rising costs and decreased access to quality care for the average consumer.  Good news!  A relatively simple solution to some of these ailments may be right at our collective fingertips. 

As the healthcare industry continues to push the costs for services higher, the burden of payment has been falling, increasingly more, on the patient. We now have seen a rising consumer-protection movement, pushing toward: improvement in the quality of healthcare, increased access to care, and at the same time, a decrease in the cost for this care.

Timely, cost-effective communication between patient and provider will lower expenses, across the board. Outbound interactive voice response (IVR) systems allow healthcare staff to spend more time on the treatment of patients, rather than on the phone.  Surveys show that telephone appointment-reminders produce the best patient response, but also cost healthcare providers the most, monetarily. In addition to maintaining a low rate of patient no-shows, these outbound IVR can remind patients to schedule important appointments such as an annual physical, mammogram, vaccinations, etc. 

Proactive care management can reduce healthcare expenditures at all levels, because patients schedule and keep their appointments, thanks to an outbound IVR campaign.

In a perfect scenario, serious health conditions will then be prevented or detected early and then treated most effectively. 

As 80 million Baby Boomers need more complex and expensive healthcare services, the industry is financially bracing itself.  Someday, an outbound IVR can reduce long term healthcare costs by initiating prescription refills, reminding patients to take their medications, and informing providers of whether the patient has done so.  Bill payment provides another area in which an outbound IVR proves its worth.  A provider can offer a gentle reminder, as well as an opportunity for the patient to make a payment – right then and there.

We have just scratched the surface as far as the potential benefits of an Outbound IVR. More to come….