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Spring 2008

Volume 1, Number 2

Customer Service Centers Are Gaining Momentum in the Healthcare Industry

BACKGROUND

In the traditional healthcare facility, multiple departments and staff are involved in customer intake and “processing” activities, including reception, admit­ting and registration, coordination of multiple appointments, cashiering, insurance verification, and physician referrals. This typically results in fragmented customer service and complicated wayfinding. Although many of these departments are located on the first floor of the facility, only a few staff in each department actually have face-to-face interaction with visitors, patients, and their families. The question is:  How can a healthcare organization better utilize both its staff and space to potentially enhance operational efficiency and improve customer service?

CURRENT TREND

With the continuing focus on patient-centered care and emergence of multihospital systems, information technology, and reengineering techniques, the trend is to consolidate customer intake, processing, and support services into a single operational unit. Such units are often referred to as a customer service center, patient service center, or similar designation. The term “customer” can refer to visitors, family members, employers, payers, physicians, staff, and vendors, in addition to the “patient” who is scheduled for an interview, examination, procedure, or admission.

The customer service center serves as the primary patient and visitor intake, processing, and communica­tion area for a health­care facility or campus and also includes centralized patient/visitor amenities. The customer service center should be located directly inside the primary entrance to the healthcare complex to serve as the initial access point for visitors and most scheduled patients. This area can also function as a “home base” for family members and visitors who are spending increased time at the facility as more treatments and procedures are performed on a same-day basis.

KEY COMPONENTS

Functional components of the customer service center typically include:

• Central reception/intake and communication area ― including the entrance vestibule, initial reception/communication station for dissemination of information and wayfinding, patient/visitor lounge, discharge lounge, and other amenities for patients and visitors (e.g., public toilets, phones, ATM machine, Internet kiosk).

• Patient processing services ― including admitting, registration, insurance verification, scheduling, cashiering, billing questions, financial counseling, discharge planning, physician referral, patient/guest relations, and security.

• Other optional services and amenities ― such as a patient library or education center, an outpatient/retail pharmacy, coffee shop, gift shop, spiritual/pastoral care, and support space for volunteers.

In this model, all staff work together as a team to provide quality care in an expedient manner. The staff are often cross-trained and report organizationally to a single manager, rather than to multiple department managers. Patient satisfaction generally improves as wayfinding is simplified, patient throughput is expedited, waiting times decrease, and continuity of care improves, thus reducing operational costs. Less space is needed on the first floor (i.e., prime real estate) and staff not directly involved in face-to-face customer contact are relocated.

Patient processing and support services are being affected by numerous initiatives. The emergence of multihospital systems and advances in information technology are influencing the demand for, and configuration of, these services. At the same time, institutionwide reengineering is challenging traditional, inefficient organizational structures and operational systems.

CONCLUSION

The healthcare industry is beginning to look to the hospitality industry for solutions to ongoing customer service problems resulting from archaic organizational structures and inadequate information systems. For example, when a customer visits a hotel, he/she is met by a central reception desk and comfortable lobby immediately upon entry. At this central reception desk, the customer can receive, or be networked with, any needed services including registration, paying his/her bill, receiving/sending faxes, getting directions, making a special request regarding housekeeping services, arranging transportation, or scheduling a massage. Yet the healthcare industry requires that its customers visit multiple locations and interact with multiple staff and fragmented systems ― assuming that they first determine the appropriate access point for their needed service. The customer service center concept replicates the main reception desk or “hub” found in an upscale hotel and connects its customers to various other services or “spokes” that may be remote.  back to top

Cynthia Hayward

chayward@hayward-assoc.com

Trendline 1308.02.1