Call Center Manager to OnBrand24 Healthcare: "You Guys Made a Night-and-Day Difference"

It’s been over a year since we signed on as the outsourced call center for a large, regional hospital (1,000+ beds) for non-clinical physician referrals and class and event registration, so we thought it was a good time to get a progress report.

We interviewed the call center manager for the hospital (which requested anonymity), and the feedback was very gratifying.

“You guys made a night-and-day difference,” she said.

She breaks down the benefits delivered by OnBrand24 Healthcare into four categories:

• Improved Customer and Patient Support Services: Compared with the previous outsourced call center, OnBrand24 Healthcare has reduced patient inquiries referred to the hospital’s in-house staff by 70 percent. This is a major efficiency benefit to the hospital, whose staff now has more time to focus on higher-level administrative and patient programs. It also means that patients receive more prompt service because their inquiries receive first-call resolution.

In addition, complaints from patients about call center service quality, which had been frequent, have been virtually eliminated.

This improvement reflects OnBrand24 Healthcare’s ability to go beyond scripted responses. Our patient support specialists are trained to communicate with patients on an individual basis and to take the initiative to research patients’ needs. Above all, our patient support specialists are problem solvers. They enjoy helping customers gain access to the resources and information they require. The result: according to our hospital client contact, OnBrand24 Healthcare has significantly improved patient support service and customer satisfaction.

• Dedicated, Premise-based Team: Our team methodology represents a major area of difference and improvement. The hospital’s previous call center had a virtual staff model, with agents and the team manager working from home for a variety of clients. By contrast, OnBrand24 Healthcare has implemented a dedicated, premise-based team approach. This means a relatively small team of patient support specialists and managers work together only on the hospital’s program, and they all work from within our call center facility.

This ensures strong communication, accountability and responsiveness between the hospital and our dedicated team. It also enables the hospital to know each of our team members individually. And it means our team continually becomes more expert about the hospital, its program and its brand. Lessons learned are not dispersed among agents working for other clients. Instead, they are absorbed by a contained team.

HIPAA compliance also is enhanced because patient records are handled by a limited group of agents at a single location.

Finally, because our Team Leader is dedicated to the hospital’s program, system changes and updates are a top priority and immediately put into effect – the Team Leader is not juggling the needs of other clients.

• Flexible Software and IT Infrastructure: The hospital reports that OnBrand24 Healthcare, in combination with LVM’s Centaurus software, quickly implemented a customized program that supports the hospital’s business processes and patient care practices.

In addition, according to the hospital, OnBrand24 Healthcare quickly makes system changes and updates, such as adding new classes and changing class schedules, making additions to the physician referral network and changing drop- down menus.

Centaurus is both user-friendly and powerful, enabling our Team Leader to quickly make updates without the involvement of programmers on our IT staff. And because of the ease and speed we can make those changes, we do not impose incremental charges to hospital, helping them realize significant cost savings.

This contrasts with the previous call center, which charged extra for a wide range of tasks, such as adding physicians to the referral network, making changes to event schedules, completing patient survey, and so forth. Charges for these activities added up to thousands of dollars per month.

• Cost Savings: The hospital reports that in addition to achieving enhanced patient service, greater customization and overall responsiveness, OnBrand24 Healthcare has reduced the hospitals monthly outsourced call center costs by roughly 35 percent.

It’s good to hear “Job Well Done” from a client, particularly one with the complex requirements of a major hospital. We look forward to continuing a successful partnership with the hospital moving forward.