The Impact of RPA Technology on the Healthcare Industry
When RPA technology is used in the healthcare industry, patients will be able to schedule appointments without consulting medical workers. In addition to reducing the requirement for resource allocation in appointment scheduling, the program also aids in improving customer interactions by enabling patients to rapidly arrange appointments as per their convenience.
The existing healthcare system has a number of difficulties to address in order to synchronize data from various internal and external sources, including medical records, financial papers, clinical apps, laboratory systems, insurance portals, and other disparate systems.
To address the issue of overcrowded and overworked administrative staff, RPA is urgently required in the healthcare industry. In order to avoid the superfluous flood of work and enable the administrative team to concentrate on more value-added duties, there is an urgent call to switch to superior digital technology.
The scheduling of patient appointments is enhanced by robotic automation process (RPA), as seen below.
Patient Appointment Scheduling using RPA
Based on the patient’s history, the doctor’s availability, their location, and other details like their insurance, the RPA bot sets up their appointments. Along with offering automated data collecting and processing, it also offers modern front-office support.
Reminders are dispatched via text messages and emails in the ideal automated patient scheduling method. The robot optimizes patient appointments and reminds patients of their appointments. Additionally, the bot notifies users when a doctor is unavailable for patient appointments and indicates their availability.
By managing the medical information effectively, it also facilitates communication between physicians, medical assistants, and other professionals regarding new appointments, changes to existing appointments, and cancellations.
Significantly Lower Error Rates Due to Patient Registration Automation
According to Harvard Medical Practice research, more than 90% of mistakes that resulted in adverse consequences were thought to be avoidable and that 70% of errors were due to neglect. The Ponemon Institute estimates that patient misidentification results in a loss of $17.4 million per hospital annually and adds about 30 minutes of wasted time to the average clinician’s shift. It also causes 35% of all medical claims to be denied.
These facts make it very evident that RPA is required in the healthcare industry. Additionally, the amount of human mistake in the process is greatly reduced with automated patient registration.
Additionally, the bot may generate a thorough report on each patient’s medical history and communicate it to the referral planning staff and physicians, boosting data protection throughout transfers.
Patient Appointment Scheduling using RPA as a solution
RPA is the best option for scheduling the patient appointments. The patient will receive an automated confirmation of the appointment before it is put to their online medical record. Patients who need an appointment can manually add one by choosing a time that will pass from the online scheduling widget on your website. You have the option to modify, accept, reschedule, or cancel these appointments.
Patient Appointment Scheduling using RPA as a solution by Zepto
Incorporate Your Scheduling Tools: With the help of an easy-to-use, integrated web app for online scheduling, your patients may schedule appointments anywhere. You may quickly schedule an appointment on the website of your clinic or health center. As a result, you may spend your time on more worthwhile and significant activities because you no longer have to haggle with patients to find a time that works for both of you.
Calendar for Medical Appointment: Text messages or emails can be used to design, customize, and schedule automatic medical appointment reminders. Doctors, assistants, and other professionals within your organization can be quickly notified of new appointments, changes to their existing appointments, and cancellations of existing appointments. Set appointment reminders for patients as well to prevent time loss on the part of the doctor due to patient absence.
Administrate your medical database: Your database keeps track of your patients automatically. Additionally, their name, address, and medical history can also be included. Upon scheduling the first appointment, your database system automatically saves patient information. The use of RPA in the patient scheduling and registration process can address a number of problems and streamline the patient intake process.
Reduction of Waiting Time: The duration of making an appointment is the key issue in patient registration and scheduling. Most patients prefer reputed institutions and clinical groups, but because of the large patient volume, the doctors cannot schedule a longer appointment than a week. Numerous patients wind up having appointments rescheduled or are no-shows.
This issue will be resolved by RPA bots for scheduling and registration by utilizing machine learning capabilities and the RPA bot’s natural language processing engines. This will enable patients who have been on the waitlist for an excessive amount of time to receive care from their preferred healthcare provider while effectively managing the doctor’s schedule.
Precise Patient Information During Registration: For the Revenue Cycle Management’s (RCM) subsequent step of billing claims and obtaining payments from insurance companies, collecting patient data at registration is crucial. Both patients and front office personnel are frustrated by the manual registration process’ hold periods and delays, which can last up to 20 minutes.
RPA bots can quickly direct patients through the registration process and check their data using the national language generator, resulting in 100% accuracy for patients’ demographic data.
Data Recording and Compatibility: RPA bots are designed to navigate between your appointment scheduling software, electronic health records (EHR), electronic medical records (EMR), payer portals, and other systems in order to verify and document the patient data obtained in the designated application, which could be an EHR or another scheduling system.
Unattended registration and scheduling bots are available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, which means that RPA bots will handle these duties even when your front office staff is not present or after their normal working hours. All of these activities greatly increase the number of patients seen, and your hospital or healthcare system has a better possibility of increasing revenue as well.
Time and Financial savings: The chance of error and patient annoyance will increase as the hospital hires additional personnel for front-end operations. In addition to avoiding operational costs, RPA will cut back on front-end operations costs, the time required to register and schedule one patient, and the cost of front-end operations overall.
When compared to hiring human labor, RPA bots are far more cost-effective investments because they are one-time costs with a quick return on investment. They can also multitask and cooperate. Due to this, the practice’s financial performance as a whole and reputation for punctuality can both be enhanced by combining a small number of front-end operations workers with RPA.
Compliance: RPA guarantees the security of patient Protected Health Information (PHI) and is wholly Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)compliant. RPA bots are programmed to adhere to local, state, and federal healthcare compliance regulations, keep track of who accesses the data, and report any security breaches. Overall, it lessens the number of HIPAA audits that must be conducted and the severe penalties for PHI data breaches. The objective of RPA is to simplify the registration and scheduling of patients. in the dynamic environment of healthcare companies.
Conclusion: RPA in healthcare has several benefits and uses. Some of these are essential for producing a positive patient experience and feedback about your healthcare company. Both attended and unattended bot functionalities for automated patient scheduling and registration are available for use with your current workflow.
If you need assistance in Robotic Process Automation in Malaysia or Singapore, feel free to contact us and we will have one of our consultants to assist through a consulting call.
Zepto Consulting Sdn Bhd is one of the leading providers of Robotic Process Automation (RPA) solutions in Malaysia and Singapore, offering efficient and cost-effective services to various industries. Our range of RPA tools and services helps businesses streamline their operations and improve productivity. At Zepto, we are committed to delivering exceptional results through our innovative technology and dedicated customer service.