Investigates the factors and ROI of improving the patient access process.

1. Need Title Slide
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The ROIs of Recasting the
Patient Access Experience

2. How Do Patients View Access?
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3. How Did Providers Innovate Access?
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They use better phones to answer patient calls.

4. How Do Patients Access Their Other Firms?
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5. Realized Benefits
– Reduced call volume 30% by:
• Decreasing duplicate calls
• Increasing 1st call resolution
• Improving effectiveness of processes
• Offloading calls to web-service
• Savings of $900,000
– Increased scheduling capacity by 15%, reduced
cancellations by 20%, no-shows by 20%
• Selected new scheduling application, standardized
physician scheduling, electronic reminders
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6. Realized Benefits
– Increased customer satisfaction
• Online “ask us a question”
• Online registration forms
• Reduced wait times
• Contact center triage
• Reduced number of transferred calls
– Increased new patient acquisition
• Online window to register
• Increased contact center hours
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7. Factors Contributing to Poor Access
– Physicians receive 100-200 calls each day
– Patients call +2 times to meet their need
– Primary care patients wait for appointments; retail
clinics capturing share
– Losing an appointment results in losing future
appointments
– Specialty care patients wait longer
– Average fully loaded cost of a call is $25-$30
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8. Business Challenges of Poor Access
– Decreases effectiveness of population health
Health concerns are untreated or unmanaged
Creates discontinuity of care management
Patient frustration causes them to ignore care plan
Patients go to ED for non-emergent care
Decreased collections, increased revenue cycle
Patients switch to plans guaranteeing provider
availability
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9. What Makes Consumers Switch Providers?
– 67% site convenience
– 88% site ease of getting appointment
– 39% site long wait times
– Patient losses prohibit scaling the practice
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10. What are the Access ROIs?
 The ROIs of improved caller access come from:
– Reducing call volumes by improving processes
– Reducing wait times and abandoned calls by
adding automated call-back functionality and
increasing service hour availability
– Providing other effective access channels (self-
service) to decrease calls
– Reducing the number of duplicate calls and faxes
– Providing clinical access
– Reducing unnecessary ED visits
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11. What do Customers Expect?
 89% of companies try to exceed expectations
 84% of customers say expectations were not
even met
 What are customers’ expectations:
– They expect to meet their needs without having to
call your organization
– Calling requires effort, costs you money and
angers your customers
– Customers will look for an easier solution
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12. Increasing Retention = Decreasing Effort
 Requiring patients to call decreases loyalty
 Improved call satisfaction does not create
loyalty
 Better customer service does not increase
loyalty; not needing customer service does
 Focus on better results, not less talk time
 Decreasing effort reduces service costs and
increases retention1
HBR 7/2010 12

13. Thank you
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Mr. Paul Roemer, CEO, Pale Rhino Consulting
paul@palerhinoconsulting.com
484.885.6942