Improving Healthcare Customer Experience With Speech Analytics

The healthcare industry is constantly evolving and faces critical challenges on a daily basis. From ever-changing government regulations to managing patient expectations to finding ways to deliver more efficient and better care, many healthcare providers struggle to balance it all. Now more than ever, healthcare providers need to find away to efficiently and effectively manage customer relationships and provide excellent customer experience while still maintaining regulatory compliance.

The solution many healthcare providers are turning to is speech analytics software. Speech analytics or interaction analytics transcribes, monitors, and analyzes data from every customer interaction, instantly. When healthcare providers utilize speech analytics at its fullest capacity, they instantly get access to the voice of the patient are able to better understand how patients perceive their brand. Along with this data, they can also see how individual patient service representatives perform through automated scorecards.

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Achieving Regulatory Compliance through Speech Analytics

Speech analytics allows healthcare providers to achieve compliance by recording 100% phone conversations and listening for keywords or phrases established by the provider. HIPAA, HITECH Act, The Telephone Consumer Protection Act and Fair Debt Collection Practices Act all apply to healthcare providers.  Here are four ways speech analytics assists healthcare providers with regulatory compliance.

1. Listens to every conversation.

Speech analytics software silently listens to every conversation across all communication channels including the phone, email, and chat. Managers can program the software to listen for specific keywords and phrases that could put compliance in jeopardy. When these words are used, the software automatically flags the conversation to be reviewed and notifies leadership.

Because management has access to these instances in real-time, they are better equipped to address representatives quickly so they can use preferred call language on calls moving forward.

2. Automatically scores calls.

In addition, speech analytics listens to the conversations, words used, voice inflection, and  lengthy amounts of silence, assigning a score to each. At the end of the call, agents have instant access to the scorecard that identifies where they need to improve and what they excel at. Having this information at their fingertips empowers them to correct themselves on the next call without intervention from management.

3. Easier to overcome audit requests or disputes.

Audits play a big role in the everyday operations of healthcare providers. By having speech analytics in place, providers can cut down on the time it takes to get through an audit or resolve any disputes. Since every conversation is transcribed and recorded, providers only have to pull the recordings and/or transcription of the call to show their proof of compliance allowing them to get back to focusing on their patients.

4. Improved training for representatives.

When specific keywords are mentioned that put providers at risk for lack of compliance, managers get a notification instantly. These notifications allow managers to review the call and intervene with additional training and support personalized to the representatives weaknesses.

Improving the Patient Experience

The healthcare customer experience evolution is forcing providers into a new realm, one that requires them to build strong relationships with patients while delivering valuable care. This transition is often difficult, especially because providers have little or no data to help them build a rapport with patients moving forward. Speech analytics can play a key role in enhancing patient experience.

1. Collect data instantly.

Since 100% of calls are recorded and transcribed from day one, providers get instant access to how their customers feel about their care and how they interact with representatives. Overtime, the cumulative information can be reviewed and used to identify trends in patient care and make improvements to overcome inefficiencies.

2. Track patient sentiment.

Losing patients in today’s healthcare market is a big loss for many providers. Speech analytics can improve patient retention by identifying which patients are at risk for leaving by listening stress in their voice and rate of speech. When providers have this valuable insight, they are able to reach out and correct it before the patient is lost.

3. Understand why patients are upset.

If representatives are constantly fielding calls from the same patients without resolving their requests, reps can quickly become frustrated. Usually patients continue to call in because the underlying reason for their call was never answered. Providers can uncover the root cause for frustrations and phone calls allowing providers to better train representatives to quickly address these issues on future calls.

4. Automatically provide feedback to representatives.

Just like automated scoring helps with compliance, it also improves the patient experience. When patient representatives know exactly what areas they need to improve, they are usually able to make adjustments on their own and deliver a better experience to the patients.

Healthcare providers face a lot scrutiny every day. Speech analytics lets providers uncover hidden reasons for setbacks, make improvements, meet regulations, and achieve a better patient experience.