4 reasons to add live calling to your resupply repertoire
By Jim Dragatsis, President of Brightree ReSupply LiveCall
Resupply patients are already experiencing a health crisis, but that criticality can skyrocket during a pandemic or natural disaster like the hurricanes and wildfires the country has been combatting for months. Critical patients need outreach more than ever.
In fact, we’ve found in our live calling that patients are very concerned with their health. So, staying on the program, changing out their supplies, and practicing best practices has become a priority to keep them healthy and bacteria-free. And providers are seeing patient satisfaction surveys just skyrocket because of the enhanced patient experiences that come with the personal touch of live calling.
Patients love the fact that they’re getting contacted, being reminded to replace their supplies and given that education that they haven’t gotten since setup. And then post-COVID, we’re expecting more compliant patients because of the fact that they understand the seriousness of changing out supplies to avoid infection.
As HME providers are leaning on live calling services, they’re seeing that they can help rescue patients who haven’t ordered in six or nine months by engaging them with resupply orders. In fact, our providers who use a call center service for outbound calling experience a 98% connection rate with patients. With those personal touchpoints, they’re able to talk through what each patient is eligible for and encourage compliance – which ultimately results in a $40 to $50 increase in allowable per order.
There are 4 main reasons that any resupply program can benefit from the right live calling service.
1. Timely support. Many providers have experienced a swell in call volume during the COVID-19 crisis that they weren’t equipped to support. A dedicated call center can support companies that don’t have the time or the staff to run a resupply operation. It works as an extension of your business team, complete with agents who follow resupply best practices and lend their expertise to support patient care – and maximized orders. And for those companies that have a resupply team in place, you can reallocate those resources to strategic areas of the business.
2. Troubleshoot for patients. Whether it’s water in their tubing, a filter that fell out or other equipment trouble, customer satisfaction agents provide full patient support to help them resolve any issues and answer any therapy questions. This kind of support frees respiratory therapists and other team members to do what they do best — clinical setups and growing businesses.
Brightree ReSupply LiveCall agents provide support for multiple disease states including sleep therapy, ostomy, diabetic, urology, and incontinence.
3. Quality assurance steps. With live calling, patients are contacted at the right time for equipment resupply, and it’s so seamless that they don’t even know they’re connecting to an outsourced call center. Plus, experienced agents can provide a backend quality assurance program that: scrubs all sales orders, updates templates, works exclusion, and resolves open tasks so your staff can focus on higher-touch activities.
4. Expert insight. With a focused call center comes focused data about the results of your live patient interactions. And what’s better than data? Data translation. Trends are changing and with the rising prominence of advanced analytics, you can review the health of your business for any necessary adjustments and start to predict outcomes of those adjustments. By leaning on the expertise of a live calling service, you can focus on recommendations.
With providers like Hometown Healthcare in Watervliet, New York, we’re hearing reports of smooth sailing for resupply programs because they have a call center in place. COO Aram Toomajian tells us the live calling service has kept his organization experiencing consistent results with patient outreach and order volume throughout the pandemic. They’ve not only been able to maintain their service standards but also to prevent patients from being negatively impacted.