Achieving 100% accountability: How healthcare CRM drives action and resolves issues
Medical laboratories in the United States process some 6.5 billion tests per year and generate enormous volumes of data in the process. While these data have the potential to enhance lab services and improve care beyond the delivery of test results, they are stored in various formats and spread across multiple systems, making these data difficult to compile and report on without substantial delays. In the face of unprecedented industry reform and reduced payments, today’s healthcare leaders must translate data into client intelligence—instantly identifying trends to drive action and accountability across the organization, resulting in timely resolution of issues and improved client relationships.
Historically, in order to gain access to critical client information, labs (along with their healthcare counterparts across the continuum of care) have manually mined data and compiled disparate reports—spanning lab operations, customer service, marketing, billing, finance, and logistics. It has often taken weeks or months to generate meaningful reports. Not only has this approach been operationally inefficient; it has led to poor quality, reactive decision-making, and delayed communication that has impacted both client relationships and patient care. Time-sensitive problems such as turnaround time (TAT) delays or repeat billing issues have gone unnoticed until the relationship with the healthcare provider was beyond repair or, much worse, patients’ health was at risk.
There are better ways, however, and clinical laboratories are increasingly adopting them. In order to build and maintain superior, enduring relationships, labs are proactively identifying trends that drive immediate action, staying a step ahead of potential issues, and pleasing their provider clients with tailored service.
A healthcare-specific customer relationship management (CRM) solution that delivers real-time insight into critical client interactions as they are happening has become a critical strategic asset to the laboratory by providing all stakeholders with access to the intelligence required to deliver tailored, prompt, and consistent client service. By adopting a healthcare CRM, clinical medical laboratories and healthcare entities across the continuum of care are achieving a number of tangible benefits.
Gaining operational efficiency
For many clinical laboratories, compiling data into meaningful reports often takes so much time and energy that the findings are out-of-date before trends can be identified and action plans can be formulated. In addition to the reactive nature of this approach, human error is common with data and reports that are manually compiled. As a result, while lab leaders are able to access client reports, the information is often outdated, inaccurate, and incomplete. Therefore, how client information is compiled and accessed is critical for labs seeking to achieve the highest level of performance.
A lab-specific CRM eliminates time-consuming, error-prone manual processes and replaces them with a comprehensive, up-to-the moment view of all client activities—automatically generating intelligence and identifying trends related to one specific client or all clients—that is instantly available to anyone who needs it. Rather than replacing the data systems a lab has already invested in, such as LIS, billing, or logistics, a lab-specific CRM taps into the data trapped within these silos to create an intuitive, holistic view of important trends and critical client needs.
With a lab-specific CRM, substantial time savings extend to all lab users. Routine tasks such as looking up order volumes by client, assessing client issues by category, and proactively preparing for client meetings take place at the click of a button. Opportunities to gain new business can be accurately captured and valued using lab-specific functionality that provides estimated revenue calculations based on specialty, volume, and appropriate fee schedules.
A lab-specific CRM enables employees to gain back hours of productivity, and it also transforms reactive manual analysis into proactive problem solving. This puts labs a step ahead of client needs, resulting in more client wins and increased long-term relationships. Less time spent filtering through endless streams of data in spreadsheets and printed reports means more time to focus on strengthening the quality of patient care and client relationships.
Viewing the health of each client relationship
Although many labs can access TAT, volume, and other client information in the clinical system, too often it is not presented in an actionable manner. With many data silos and heavy labor involved in pulling data into relevant reports, the health of individual client relationships can be difficult to pinpoint.
Using a lab-specific healthcare CRM, labs have instant access to a 360-degree view of each ordering provider, including a snapshot of the key performance indicators for each client relationship. Additionally, labs serving providers with multiple locations are able to assess performance for individual locations or a roll-up of all locations. By gaining access to all facets of each client relationship within one easy-to-access view, labs gain the intelligence necessary to deliver a high-quality, consistent experience to each provider.
An important differentiator between a healthcare-specific CRM and a generic CRM is the ability to view both business and clinical intelligence in one combined solution. Whereas generic CRM systems capture only about 10% of the picture, even after costly customization, a lab-specific CRM captures both the business activities and clinical activities required to create a 360-degree view of each client relationship—without requiring any customization. This business and clinical intelligence is instantly made available, including via lab-specific dashboards, to all users as specified by their role. Automated intelligence and alerts are available for each provider relationship.
Taking action to resolve issues
In addition to being data-rich, labs are highly dependent on people. While Lean Six Sigma, ISO:15189 and other quality management methods help labs increase throughput while reducing defects and costs, these initiatives fail to establish the comprehensive access to client intelligence that is required to drive action and resolve issues.
Through closed-loop case management, a lab-specific CRM can provide employees with a universal environment to facilitate accountability by notifying and assigning tasks to the individual(s) who must take action. For example, if a practice manager calls the lab customer service number to report a billing issue, the service rep receiving the call can easily view all relevant history related to that provider, including correspondence and any open issues, and create a case and assign it to the appropriate person to resolve the issue. Further, all stakeholders across the lab have access to this intelligence in order to understand why service issues occurred and how they can be prevented in the future. A daily view of open and closed cases—with analysis of case category and detail drilldown capabilities—can help the lab pinpoint individuals who are in need of additional training or client relationships that may soon be at risk.
In addition to issue management, a healthcare CRM with configurable alerts can immediately notify the appropriate team members of changes in order volume, TAT, or outstanding cases by client. For example, a sales representative preparing for an onsite client meeting may receive a morning alert that the client’s average TAT is not meeting the client’s requirement. Armed with this knowledge and access to the healthcare CRM, the rep can proactively pinpoint the issue prior to the meeting, arriving with a resolution already in place. A healthcare CRM enables enterprise-wide accountability to achieve service excellence by putting the power to identify needs and take action to resolve them directly within the hands of lab employees.
The time is now
Along with all healthcare organizations, laboratories are facing fundamental changes to their business landscape that require them to immediately take action to succeed moving forward. The healthcare providers who select lab partners do so based on the lab’s ability to deliver superior service while uncovering actionable intelligence. Providers are demanding that labs become true partners—strategic extensions of their healthcare organizations. In the heavily competitive U.S. lab market, comprised of some 215,000 CLIA-certified labs, high performance labs must gain a comprehensive view of every client that exceeds what is possible within systems focused on internal clinical processes. For this reason, the labs that first embrace a comprehensive healthcare CRM will gain the intelligence necessary to drive proactive action and deliver the highest level of service to clients, while those who fail to capture a unified client view will continue to fall behind.
