Running a contact center in the healthcare space isn’t an easy task. Between compliance, regulations, onboarding, training, and QA alone, managers have their hands more than full. However, call centers can find cost savings, efficiencies, and more when using modern software solutions.

In this piece, we’ll provide you with insights into everything you need to know about healthcare contact center software. We’ve got you covered, no matter if you’re looking to learn what it is, what the benefits are, and what to consider when purchasing.

Now, let’s dive in!

What is Healthcare Call Center Software?

Simply put, contact center software is designed to allow call centers in the healthcare space to run more efficiently by streamlining processes like coaching, training, and quality assurance. This software allows many contact centers to find improved customer experiences and potential cost savings.

However, the benefits don’t just stop there. Later in this piece, we’ll take an in-depth look at the significant benefits of using the software within your medical call center.

How to evaluate and select the best call center software for your healthcare organization

Importance of Healthcare Call Center Software for Hospitals & Medical Facilities

Implementing call center technology can take a healthcare organization to an entirely new level of efficiency and cost savings without sacrificing quality or functionality. Software for call centers has a wide range and scope of functions and aims to help businesses streamline processes like coaching, messaging, compliance, and QA.

Best Healthcare Contact Center Software Platform Types

When it comes to software for medical call centers, there are a few different types of platform types. Here, we’ll get you equipped with information about the most common ones you may encounter during your search for a software solution.

CCaaS and UCaaS Software Systems

Both CCaaS and UCaaS are cloud-based communication integration platforms. However, there’s one key primary difference between the two. With UCaaS, the platform is designed to help connect a company’s internal employees. On the flip side, CCaaS systems are designed to help connect a company to its customers. The goal of both systems is to help streamline communications.

AI-Powered Healthcare Contact Center Software

Outside of CCaaS and UCaaS, another platform type is AI-powered software. With this type of software for your healthcare call center, the software uses the extraordinary power of artificial intelligence to assist your team in real time.

For example, some software designed for call centers in the healthcare space use AI to help guide the agents in real time. As the call happens, the AI can listen in and provide suggestions to your agents based on what the caller says. With this real-time guidance, your agents can quickly help clients and provide more consistent messaging.

Healthcare contact center software

Benefits of using Healthcare Contact Center Software in the Medical Industry

All medical businesses dream of improving their patient experience by offering personalized services and faster support. Luckily, software for call centers allows healthcare customers to achieve both of these. In addition, there are other exciting advantages, which we’ll dive into now.

Quality Assurance

Assure high customer satisfaction in all interactions across all channels. You’ll be able to use the software’s powerful call center quality assurance analytics to get the best possible response times for your call center agents. In addition, you’ll gain access to a vast database of information that will help you understand and improve your healthcare call center processes.

Comprehensive HIPAA Compliance

The Health Insurance Portability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) protects health records by guaranteeing confidential health data privacy and security. It also identifies security measures that protect a customer’s personal information electronically. Those may include calls, records, notes, and all information shared among your contact center solutions with your EHR or Emergency Medical Services software systems.

Protecting patient information is paramount in the healthcare space. With that in mind, software for medical call centers is designed to be 100% HIPAA-compatible. In turn, the software protects private patient data from unauthorized access during the customer care process.

Expedited Patient Services

Integrations and connections to EHR software allow agents to access relevant patient medical records to serve them better. It’s all part of the single pane of glass (SPoG) experience that streamlines agent productivity by minimizing app switching and getting more done with fewer clicks.

AI-Powered

As we mentioned earlier, some software uses the power of AI to automate coaching, QA, and guidance.Thanks to these, agents can gain increased productivity in real time by offering advanced agent assistance features for sentiment analysis and more.

Essential Healthcare Call Center Software Features

Healthcare contact centers are responsible for many different tasks, from compliance with various restrictions and regulations applicable to patient information to call routing and more. With that in mind, the software solution for your medical call center must have these core features.

Omnichannel Presence

Omnichannel communication capabilities allow patient contact via telephone, email, SMS, and other communication tools. It allows the multichannel reach of an enterprise system to respond to incoming and outgoing messages. For example, a medicare call center quadrupled its contact center rate after switching to Convoso, a provider of omnichannel contact center software. Thanks to this, your organization can reach the most people conveniently by using multiple channels while providing high-quality medical care.

Call Routing and Decision-Making AI

Artificial Intelligence (AI) can help your organization route calls using automated call distribution (ACDS). Moreover, AI-enabled software can assist in automating a lot of basic tasks like payment processing and appointments. Thanks to these automated workflows, your contact center can reduce call times, coordinate workflows, and help clients with more efficient and consistent communications.

Integration with Medical Records Systems

This allows for better diagnosis and individualized care and will enable you to track and analyze patients’ medical histories. With more comprehensive information on patients’ records, you can provide them with the necessary information to help them get the best possible treatment.

Things to Consider While Choosing the Right Healthcare Call Center Software for the Medical Industry

When choosing software for your medical contact center, it is recommended that you select a few key features to meet the numerous regulatory requirements regarding patient communication and data storage. However, it’s also essential to account for several other things. Check the list of items below you’ll want to consider when selecting the software for your contact center.

Availability/Uptime

The software provider’s availability is vital to consider during your selection process. Also known as uptime, availability refers to how often the software properly functions. Whenever it’s down, you and your team won’t be able to benefit from its capabilities.

So what should you look for? In general, the higher the uptime, the better. A legitimate software provider should be able to tell you their uptime. If comparing multiple software vendors, stack their reported uptimes against one another to see who stands out.

For more information about why uptime is so critical to your business, check out this article by Pressidium.

Support

When selecting software for your contact center, it’s essential to consider the quality of support available from the provider. Having reliable support is necessary not only for the initial implementation but also for ongoing support.

Ensure you’re comfortable that the selected software provider will provide quick and detailed help when needed. There’s nothing worse than being in a bind with a software issue and not being able to have swift support. Look for a provider that provides around-the-clock customer service, so you know you’ll never have to wait too long to get assistance.

Price

When choosing software for your healthcare contact center, you’ll also want to account for the price of the software. Depending on your organization’s budget, you may feel mixed about investing in the software. However, quality software for healthcare industry call centers is well worth the investment.

While the initial and ongoing cost may seem daunting, you’ll quickly benefit from efficiencies like shorter call times and improved first-call resolution scores.

Customer Reviews

The good news is that you don’t have to make a blind decision when selecting the software for your medical contact center. Luckily, you can check out reviews from other organizations that have gone ahead of you using this software and see what their opinions of them were – good, bad, or indifferent.

When searching for customer reviews, look for a software provider with many positive reviews. Much like when looking at reviews for a product on Amazon, remember there will always be some negative ones. Your goal should be to seek software with good reviews that well outweigh the bad ones.

If you’re unsure where to start regarding software reviews, G2.com is an excellent resource. Here, you’ll be able to quickly see what others are saying about software built for healthcare call centers.

Efficient Reporting & Monitoring

Using reports and call quality monitoring dashboards available from software for medical call centers, it’s possible to easily check how well your agents are performing. Ensure you select a software provider that offers your organization the monitoring and reporting capabilities to succeed.

Efficient Integration Capabilities

It’s also essential to select software that quickly and efficiently integrates with any CRM systems in-house. Properly integrated, this can assist health professionals and contact center agents to retain context in conversations and increase productivity. Look for a solution that integrates seamlessly with any CRMs you’re currently using.

Enterprise-Grade Security

Lastly, one other thing you’ll want to consider during your search is the level of security provided by the software. Be sure to inquire about which certifications each software offers to help ensure you’re keeping all of your data safe and secure.

Balto’s Call Software Solutions for the Healthcare Industry

If you’re searching for software for your medical contact center, we’d love to provide you with a free demo of our powerful and transformative solutions.

With Balto, you’ll gain real-time insights into your healthcare contact center. From QA to coaching and guidance, we can help you streamline your daily operations – allowing you to gain efficiencies and realize cost savings.

If you’d like to dive in now, you can check out our client case studies to see how we’ve been able to help call centers to improve coaching, generate more consistent messaging, and decrease ramp time. In addition, you can use the link above to gain immediate access to helpful e-books, blog articles, and webinars.