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Hello oded-ga,
Thanks for your question.
Any hospital worth its name is going to provide post-operation
telephone follow-up. Even if it's not legally mandated, you might as
well consider it so. I certainly would not revisit a hospital that
didn't have a human call me after an operation. If the legality
portion of this question is of importance, I will be glad to research
this in detail.
I've located some outsourced firms that do what you're looking for, or
can create solutions to do what you're looking to do.
Intellicare
http://www.intellicare.com.
Their outsourcing solution "enables healthcare organizations to
partner with IntelliCare to benefit from customizable
Internet-enabled, blended media contact centers for a variable monthly
fee based on transaction volume, rather than owning and operating a
call center. Customers are able to brand the outsourced contact center
with the name of their organization to increase visibility within
their market. IntelliCare's highly trained knowledge workers - coupled
with IntelliCare technology - reduce costs without sacrificing service
levels. If a hospital or health system does not already have a
medical call center in place, the cost to create and maintain one can
be staggering. But the alternative -- not providing these valuable
services to increasingly knowledgeable and demanding patients -- can
be just as costly. Outsource Services provide a round-the-clock URAC
accredited contact center branded and operated in your name without
the burden of owning, staffing and operating a call center facility.
Fees are based on transaction volume. IntelliCare's technology and
reliability, highly skilled employees and depth of experience as an
outsource provider for hospitals ensure your complete confidence. We
act as careful stewards of your identity, responding to your
constituents with a high-touch, quality contact experience. To date,
we've handled more than 3.5 million patient contacts without an
adverse outcome."
Medical Services
http://www.medicalservicesmso.com/
"We have a well-trained staff and state-of-the-art equipment which
includes:
* Customized software that will allow electronic transfer of accounts
and electronic posting of payments and adjustments.
* A predictive dialing system, capable of making 175,000 calls per
week.
* Voice-Technologies recording system which records every
incoming/outgoing phone call placed at our office and stores them for
six months. (This reduces customer complaints and ensures quality
customer relations.)"
TeamHealth
http://www.teamhealth.com/
"Follow-up/call back for post-ED visits, day surgery and new moms. The
advances today in medical technology would be incomprehensible a few
short years ago - outpatient cholesystectomies, new moms going home
within a few hours after giving birth and upwards of 85% of ED
patients being discharged. As well as these patients progress, they
still need a medical professional to keep in touch and be available
for the first few days. Whether to just let them know the hospital is
concerned about their health and well-being or to answer pertinent
healthcare questions that they may have forgotten to ask or just
thought of, the medical call center staff can extend the hospital's
presence to these patients. Follow-up opportunity also exists through
outbound calls by collecting perceptions of your hospital via call
back surveys. These surveys are personalized to address individually
identified areas used by the hospital to assess patients' satisfaction
levels. Information gleaned through the surveys can be analyzed to
direct process improvement initiatives."
Risk Management Alternatives International Limited [RMA]
http://www.rmainternational.com/services/healthcare.htm
"Challenge: As the margin narrows for hospitals with teaching
programmes, this healthcare provider seeks to outsource a great
portion of the business office in-patient and out-patient follow up
with a partner that can work the accounts remotely on the hospital's
system, as an extension of the hospital business office. Solution:
For several years, RMA continues to provide remote support to this
large teaching hospital. RMA's dedicated team of healthcare specialist
continue to provide this healthcare provider with efficient, competent
and cost-effective accounts receivable management solutions."
Beryl
Telephone Patient Surveys
http://www.beryl.net/BerylIndexServices.htm
"Beryl administers both inpatient and outpatient surveys, and also
offers a specialized emergency room callback program to ascertain
whether a patient's emergency room visit was satisfactory."
Search Terms:
hospital follow-up outsource
hospital call-center follow up
Additional Link:
CallLogistix
http://www.callogistix.com/ |
Request for Answer Clarification by
oded-ga
on
25 Jan 2003 10:14 PST
Thank you very much for the quick and thorough answer.
I kindly would like to ask for clarifications:
1. I have asked about automatic service. I ment a service as follows-
the patient is beeing enroled to the system on his or her way out
(discharging) of the institution, the system- a computer performing
the calls, gethering the information by a predefined individualized
questionnaire, processing it and sending the care team alerts and
reports, and giving the patient verbal initial indications. All of the
above in an ASP model. $3 per call, in reverse billing mode, which can
be re-imburesed by the government.
2. Is there such a service?
3. I would like to kindly ask you for information regarding potential
companies, that would like to commetialize such a service, or to
market it to medical institutions.
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Clarification of Answer by
jbf777-ga
on
25 Jan 2003 16:19 PST
Hello -
I'd be glad to help. Just to be sure, you're looking for $3 to be
reimbursed by the hospital, not government, right?
As far as I can tell, there's no readily accessible, automated
solution specifically for the medical industry, that I can see. As
surgeon-ga pointed out, I don't if people would want to hear from a
computer after being operated on. This may be the reason hospitals
haven't done this. But you may check with a marketing consulting
company I've listed below. They would most likely know if something
like this exists.
Basically what you're looking for is an automated, customizable survey
software package that will allow you to do data acquisition over the
phone. Is this correct?
If so, I've come across TeleSage at http://www.telesage.com. It's an
automated surveying package that will allow you to create custom
questionnaires for phone numbers or groups of phone numbers. This
information would be collected and stored in a database which could
then be integrated with a hospital's system.
If you would be starting this company, I would advise hiring an actual
staffed sales team to market it for you. If you choose to use a
marketing agency, I would consult with something like Medical Market
Consulting at http://www.medmktconsulting.com. I might consult with
them either way [especially to see if they have heard of this kind of
thing before].
Check out Medical Marketing Association at http://www.mmanet.org.
Also, Euro RSCG is a company that could potentially handle marketing
of something like this, based on what I gather from their site,
although they may be pharmaceutical-only. There site is at
http://www.eurorscghealthcare.com.
Other links:
Dr. Kulisz Consulting
http://www.kulisz.com/consulting_to_medical_device_dev.htm
If you need any additional info/clarification, please don't hesitate
to ask.
jbf777-ga
GA Researcher
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