Cost vs Revenue: Which Call Center Are You Operating?

It’s no secret that providers, regardless of size or care model, struggle to balance their consumer-driven patient population with the idiosyncrasies of care delivery. Managing the combined demands of healthcare consumers when it comes to new technologies and service satisfaction is no easy task. And pairing these with strict regulatory imperatives can sometimes feel impossible. But these difficulties are just a part of modern patient management needs, providers also must juggle patient retention and ensure their patients are proactively engaged in care and treatment.

The burden of this often falls on your healthcare call center.

Your call center plays a much bigger role than simply answering phones and scheduling appointments. It is the mission of the call center to help you meet the demands of your patient population while personalizing care, maintaining patient relationships, and increasing revenue at the same time. Often, we see organizations with strong call center operations that are not generating revenue. Increasing scheduling volumes, dynamic calendar management that minimizes the impact of no-shows or cancellations, and proactive patient interactions that anticipate future needs to keep patients engaged are just a few of the ways call centers can boost revenue. When your call center is not generating revenue, it runs the risk of incurring costs.

Cost Center vs Revenue Center

Cost Center:

• Organizes itself around the management of phone calls without data, insights, or training to ensure adequate measurement of return.
• Creates a burden on the health system in consideration of its technology and staffing needs.
• Operations stay afloat but produce little to no ROI.

Revenue Center:

• Organizes itself around efficient call management for an increase in scheduled appointments as a percentage of total calls.
• Executes several revenue-generating deliverables, from patient activation and marketing efforts to a superior patient experience that ensures patient loyalty.
• Results in measurable ROI.

The healthcare call center plays a critical role, not only in patient outcomes but in the continuity of your health system. A true revenue center takes time and a bit of finesse, from understanding the right investments for technology and infrastructure to organizing effective workflows and hiring the kind of people needed to extend the values of care culture over the phone.

Which kind of call center are you operating?

Download our eBook to gain insights into the call center development process and what it takes to build call center operations capable of handling the modern demands of healthcare consumers alongside scalable growth.

Download “Call Center, Cost Center, or Revenue Center?”