Stop Outsourcing To A Medical Call Center & Move To A Triage Provider

As healthcare providers of all types continue to focus on value-based care and Triple Aim initiatives, organizations hope that outsourcing to a Medical Call Center can help support their objectives.

Many healthcare organizations create internal call centers, hire specific staff, or put additional pressure on existing staff to be the call center 24/7/365, only to find that the ROI has been well below expectations. Not only have the returns been disappointing but the required operational resources need to maintain a call center or triage function internally always become more than the healthcare organization can or wants to manage or afford.

Another trend many providers follow is to outsource to a Medical Call Center to fill the new “patient engagement” demands that are driving the need for additional resources to handle out of facility patient encounters. Whether you are a physician group, hospice, home health, chronic condition manager, ACO or hospital your organization has probably contracted with a medical call center. The traditional operational model for these groups is to provide their customer base access to a pool of non-clinical phone operators who serve as nothing more than message takers and call-forwarding services. With the growing demands to have clinicians available 24/7/365 and accessible through various means (phone, mobile, chat, video), the medical call center no longer provides the value needed to improve patient satisfaction, growing populations, and changing consumer demands.

Below the top reasons our clients tell us that they made the decision to partner with us as opposed to a low cost medical center or building the function in house.

Better Technology
Organizations of all types come to IntellaTriage with a goal of improving patient engagement, outcomes and staff satisfaction, but often don’t realize that their larger challenges lie with technology. IntellaTriage has created the most expansive network of Licensed Nurses connected by leading edge communications and telemedicine platforms. Our infrastructure allows any organization to tap in to our technology and network to provide any customized patient engagement solution imaginable. Without having to invest millions of dollars for a platform and nurse network our clients are able to stand up a Nurse Triage driven call center in a matter of weeks, not months or years when done in house. We have also interfaced with every major EMR across health systems, physician groups, hospice and home care and have a proven customized approach to protocols and clinical directives. Outsourcing to a medical call center cannot provide this level of service.

Budget
It takes a team of experienced individuals to create and operate a medical call center efficiently. Couple that with leveraging only Licensed Nurses to take patient calls, and most organizations are unequipped to go it alone and create the dollars to continuously fund an in-house call center. While some organizations may have large call volume in some service lines other service lines can’t support the dedicated staff for the required service levels, and cross training. This leads to organizations doing nothing instead of getting proactive about triage care across all service lines. Budget dollars for outsourcing typically present themselves as customers bring IntellaTriage on board through lower staffing costs, continued improvement, better patient satisfaction scores and reduced readmissions.

Quality
Most health systems and organizations lack the management and analytics to identify opportunities for improvement. This is why IntellaTriage employs a dedicated team of nurses and customer success managers who oversee every client and daily operations and report back to our customers for identified areas of improvement. This improvement spans not only opportunities for our customers but also extends to our nurses and their constant training and improvement as they service our customer’s populations.

Customization
IntellaTriage believes in compassionate care for everyone. That is why we customize every client with a dedicated team of nurses, custom protocol and clinical directive development. This approach truly supports the continuum of care and eases the transition of patients from discharge to home care and readmission prevention. We DO NOT provide message taking or call forwarding services, we only provide immediate access to nurses who can guide the patient to right resources and through understanding how to adhere to their personal care plan given by their providers.

Take a look at IntellaTriage and contact us today if you like to explore your options. In the mean time browse our blog for interesting articles like the ones below.