Reduce Call Volume Guide

Health systems are overwhelmed with high call volumes. 82% of clinical support staff report frustration with communicating and coordinating with patients over the phone. They spend hours on the phone each day dealing with routine administrative tasks. As a result, patients face long hold times, fail to show up for appointments, and delay care.

The Problem with High Call Volume

Patient Dissatisfaction

High call volume means patients have to wait on hold, something no one enjoys.

Increased Costs

The accumulated cost of playing “phone tag” for rescheduled appointments adds up fast – especially for a large health system with numerous patients.

Inefficiency

Every hour that a staff member spends handling calls is an hour they are not spending on more valuable tasks such as setting appointments, targeted outreach, slot-filling, and patient care.

7 Tips to Reduce Call Volume

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Let patients text you back

Any type of communication is most successful when it’s not one way. Enabling bi-directional texting can drastically reduce phone tag since both patients and staff can respond when it’s convenient.

Offer support in the languages your patients speak

Texting patients in their preferred language is key to facilitating patient communications without needing a translator to call.

Reach multiple patients at once with the same message

For last-minute schedule changes, inclement weather, or important notifications, providers can use Broadcast Messaging to quickly select up to 1,000 patients in WELL and send them all a customized message using Smart Phrases, pulling in patient information from the EHR or scheduling system.

Use the data you already have to customize messages to groups of similar patients

Campaign Messaging enables you to upload patient lists from any of your existing databases and send specific messaging to that unique group of patients. Campaigns can push text, email, or calls based on patient preferences.

Send automated reminders

Automate repetitive outreach tasks such as appointment reminders, confirmation requests, recalls, referral workflows, follow-ups, thank you messages, and more.

Transition patients from call to text

Call to Text allows patients an easy transition to texting with a staff member instead of continuing to wait on hold.

Implement AI-enabled texting

Imagine if 50% or more of patient conversations were completed without staff intervention. AI-enabled technology such as WELL® ChatAssist AI can independently navigate common patient communication needs based on a patient’s response.

“Our patients love (WELL). It’s overdue; we should have been on this a long time ago. Patients can do multiple things, send a text, and not have to be waiting around for a response.”

David Ramirez

Clinical Support Technician at Altura Centers for Health

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Reduce Call Volume

Reduce inbound and outbound call volume with these 7 strategies

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Riverside Medical Center (RMC) is the largest physician-owned practice in California, with over 170 providers and 400,000 patient visits per year. Their patient service representatives were spending most of their day trying to get patients on the phone. After using WELL for bidirectional texting with their patients and sending bulk communications, RMC’s largest call center decreased their call volume by 6%.

RMC saw a 33% decrease in no-shows in the first month of using WELL.

RMC’s second-largest call center saw phone volume decrease by over 4%.

Before WELL, the office staff at this not-for-profit health system in the Coachella Valley were spending as much as two hours every day on the phone performing routine administrative tasks. WELL saved the staff so much time, they were able to focus more patient-centered activities and follow-up.

Using WELL, office staff saw the time they spent on the phone per day drop from as much as two hours to as low as 15 minutes, a decrease of 88 percent.

An FQHC with eight locations, 50 providers, and 140,000 annual patient visits, Altura was experiencing tens of thousands of phone calls every year, and their staff couldn’t process the high volume. Patients were spending too much time on hold, and satisfaction levels were falling. In using WELL, Altura found a solution that automatically synced with their EHR and most importantly, their call volume decreased while their patient satisfaction scores doubled.

With WELL, patients found the texting platform convenient, so call volume dropped by 10%.

Lower call volume has led to more staff satisfaction and less burnout.