Automated Health Systems

Automated health systems are addressing slow processes, inefficiencies, and high operations costs.

Resource allocation is being stretched thin as regulations and increases in administrative tasks become burdensome.

So, how can we use robotic process automation (RPA) to tackle these issues?

Automation is used best when applied to repetitive, manual, time-consuming processes. When applied correctly in the healthcare space, automated health systems can increase appointment turnout, reduce costs, and result in better experiences for patients, as well as employees.

Improved Patient Scheduling

One of the first noticeable improvements healthcare automation provides is more efficient patient scheduling. Hospitals and practices can re-allocate resources previously used to help schedule appointments.

Automated health systems that mange the scheduling process allow patients to book appointments faster. Automation bots deal with scheduling appointments and sending reminders. Automated reminders lead to appointment turnout increases. Since more people show up to their appointments due to reminder alerts, doctors can maintain a higher level of care for their patients.

RPA bots can also take patient inquiries and alert the front office with real-time information. The front office can better manage those inquiries, resulting in improved customer satisfaction.

Improved Billing Process

According to Nicole Liebau, the Senior Medicare Patrol (SMP) National Resource Center Director, Medicare loses around $60 billion a year due to fraud, errors, and abuse. Many of the errors stem from the claims management process being conducted manually. When manual tasks that include inputting, processing, and evaluating data are repetitively performed, errors inevitably occur. Automated health systems eliminate human error and complete time-sensitive tasks more efficiently.

Freeing employees from manual, repetitive tasks improves employee satisfaction. This in turn reduces employee turnover and produces a savings on recruiting and onboarding.

Improved Prior Authorization

With prior authorization, the manual process goes as follows:

• A prescription or procedure is submitted into an order entry system and then someone needs to identify the patient’s insurance provider to validate if prior authorization is required.
• Then they need to access the insurance portal and browse a list of prescriptions and procedures to see if prior authorization is required.
• If prior authorization is required, an admin must collect the required information, fill out a form with collected data, and submit the form to the insurance provider.

That manual process for prior authorization is repetitive and cumbersome and involves a lot of data entry. Automated health systems can be programed to automated much of this process to remove manual data entry and speed up the prior authorization. The program can navigate through a list of patients with prescriptions or procedures that have been requested by their doctor. The bot can review each patient request and validate prior authorization by automatically populating a health insurance form and submitting it.

In this use case, the health provider doesn’t need to allocate as many resources, employees don’t need to perform manual tasks all day, and patients get prior authorization much faster.

Download the Case Study: RPA in Healthcare

Improved Digitalization

Many healthcare providers are in the process of electronically storing patient information. Digital transformation can be tedious and time-consuming. Especially, when it involves manually digitalizing paper documents one at a time.

As you can imagine, this process requires a lot of resources, but with the use of RPA bots, data can be easily extracted from legacy systems and automatically entered to digital platforms. Furthermore, if this data needs to be migrated for other purposes, RPA bots can also handle that.

Improves Business

Automated health systems can improve businesses by reducing costs. RPA solutions cost much less than hiring additional employees. That means healthcare providers can concentrate their spending on the things that matter most—the care of their patients. According to a Council for Affordable Quality Healthcare study, the industry could potentially save over $13 billion if providers automated administrative tasks in the revenue cycle.

The Future is Here

Eliminating errors, responding to patient requests, providing a single-access point, enabling information to be accessed across platforms, and much more. Automated health systems are giving healthcare providers the ability to offer care more efficiently.

Aniket Narkar, the winner of the Maharashtra Health Hackathon 2021 – MH², recently had this to say in Forbes, “The day is not far when health will be accessible and qualitative for everyone with RPA and other technologies helping healthcare practitioners from all facets of society, we are moving towards a better technologically resilient and efficient future.”

The needs of every practice are different, but the first step to improving your practice with automated health systems is the same; reach out and discover where you may see the best return on your investment.

Submit the form below and one of our experts will guide you through evaluating your opportunities.

Other sources:
https://eldermistreatment.usc.edu/medicare-fraud-errors-and-abuse-can-cost-in-dollars-and-health/
https://research.aimultiple.com/rpa-healthcare/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6afUJNLAVtc
https://datatechvibe.com/staff-articles/is-rpa-catalysing-healthcare-industry/#:~:text=According%20to%20CAQH’s%20study%2C%20the,automated%20in%20the%20revenue%20cycle.&text=RPA%20technology%20helped%20healthcare%20providers,various%20kinds%20of%20medical%20pumps.
https://www.forbesindia.com/article/weschool/robotic-automation-in-healthcare-can-help-cut-costs-by-50/68713/1