Use Web Site, Telephone Protocols To Help Patients Access Crucial Information

June 18, 2003

Patients often express frustration as they try to navigate complex healthcare systems in search of a person who can answer all their questions about an episode of care. In June, the PATIENT FRIENDLY BILLING® Project's Data Coordination & Accessibility Work Group issued a report addressing ways to improve patients' access to important financial communications information.

Realistically, for most providers it's not possible to have a single person who can address all of a patient's questions. In the absence of one all-knowing customer support representative, healthcare organizations should strive to give consumers a significant amount of information through internet automation and through telephone protocols.

The Patient Friendly Billing Task Force recommends that an organizational best-practice approach is to begin with a self-audit to determine how accessible important data is to patients and to take a baseline measurement of patient satisfaction with the timeliness and accuracy of responses to their requests.  The organization should periodically update the self-audit and patient satisfaction measurements.  With this information in hand, you're ready to refine and continually improve your main information access vehicles for patients.

Internet Automation

Through web site automation, a healthcare organization can give consumers a convenient way to access information and communicate with the organization. Internet automation can allow patients to:

• Request appointments
• Submit registration information before the date of an appointment
• Receive appointment reminders
• Update registration or insurance information
• View bills
• Check payment status
• Make payments
• Identify the person assigned to an account, and send that person an e-mail message
• Link to medical education
• Participate in surveys, such as patient satisfaction or market research

As with communications in person or over the telephone, information stored on the Internet must be secured, and patients should be told that any information they provide will be treated confidentially.

Telephone Protocols

Telephone protocols should ensure that patients can always reach a staff member who is trained to triage the call at any point in the telephone system.

The first step is to develop an information accessibility matrix (IAM). At the top of the IAM hierarchy would be the primary telephone number that enables patients to reach the right party to have their questions answered. Using a telephone decision tree, patients would be able to reach the other IAM numbers by selecting and keying the proper response.

Once the IAM is developed, the master telephone number and the IAM should be:

• Communicated to all staff within the organization,
• Replicated on the telephone decision tree,
• Printed on all literature, including bills, ads, and the organization's web page, and
• Printed in the major languages that are represented in the community.

In addition, common telephone conversations, such as how to get a referral authorization and what information patients need to bring with them, should be scripted, and the scripts should be rehearsed by the appropriate staff.

When patients reach the wrong area, the staff member needs to stay on the line with them until they are connected to the correct person who can address their issue. Alternatively, if the telephone system is not sophisticated enough to manage multiple-party conferencing, the employee should give patients the correct telephone number for future reference and offer the option of transferring the caller to that number or taking the caller's number and having the appropriate staff member return the call. 

SOURCE:

 "Accessibility of Data Report," by the Patient Friendly Billing Project Data Coordination & Accessibility Work Group.

HFMA Wants You to Know ISSN: 1540-0697. Volume II, Issue 14. Copyright 2003, Healthcare Financial Management Association. All rights reserved.