The key challenges that the healthcare industry is facing today include high patient volume, stringent regulations, and repetitive tasks clogging the employee bandwidth – all of which result in lower patient care quality. This is where a technology like Robotic Process Automation (RPA) can help improve efficiency, lower costs, and improve the patient experience.
The biggest benefit of reducing operating costs in healthcare is that it directly results in better investments in other areas of management which directly affect the quality of the healthcare experience for the patients.
Let us understand how RPA as a technology could be a game changer in reducing the operating costs at your healthcare facility.
Also Read: Use Cases of RPA in the Healthcare Industry [Infographic]
Reducing Healthcare Costs Through RPA
RPA can be a means of reducing operating costs in healthcare. Healthcare managers must consider implementing RPA to reduce administrative costs in healthcare by automating repetitive manual tasks that are time and resource intensive.
While that would give you an idea of how much human resource cost saving can RPA provide you, you must also know about all the areas in which this cost saving in healthcare can happen.
The other ways that RPA can effectively reduce hospital operating costs in various areas of healthcare management include the following:
1. Scheduling Appointments
One of the hospital cost reduction strategies involves automating the process of scheduling and rescheduling appointments through RPA. Patient data collection and processing can be automated using bots. RPA makes it simple to scan patient data, generate reports, and send them to the management personnel for appointment scheduling.
However, manual scheduling and canceling appointments can be time-consuming. And therefore, the process can further be automated by connecting the system directly to the database of the hospital and completely automating this appointment scheduling procedure.
Reducing healthcare costs through technology will assist healthcare providers in improving delivery and streamlining operations.
When a doctor is not available, healthcare providers can configure and send notifications to their patients using RPA system. If the needed specialist is not available, RPA software can monitor the doctor’s schedule and send out appropriate alerts. This simplifies appointment scheduling management and reduce hospital operating costs.
2. Workflow Coordination and Management
Good handling and intra-team coordination are much needed in any industry or line of work but especially in healthcare. Managing this coordination manually even through a dedicated personnel manager mostly leads to numerous inefficiencies.
This is mission-critical in a healthcare setting where time is saved, and immediate intervention is everything for the patients. RPA can help eliminate these inefficiencies in workflow management. Automating the intra-team workflow coordination activities improves operation efficiency and reduces hospital operating costs.
Moreover, it frees up healthcare workers from tedious tasks, allowing them to focus on providing the best patient care. This outcome is a direct cost saver on the part of the resource costs.
3. Medical Billing
Various sections of the healthcare organization are involved in handling medical billing such as the billing department, the administration department, and clinicians. Mostly, each of these departments requires dedicated billing personnel hence increasing the overall operations cost of the department.
However, the billing process can become complicated at times because payment is not always made upfront. And this is where medical billing automation through RPA comes in to reduce hospital operating costs.
RPA improves billing efficiency by automating accounts payable and data digitization. Because staff can review bills entered into the system, a digitized billing system can also reduce human billing errors that occur when dealing with paperwork.
Many factors contribute to the patient’s total bill and keeping a record of everything manually can be time-consuming for healthcare staff.
A patient’s bill is calculated accurately using RPA software by fetching the treating data from as many resources as there can be. Further, it allows the hospital administration to configure the software to send notifications to patients regarding their bills, payments, and receipts. Thereby, reducing delays and inaccuracies which results in reducing operating costs in healthcare.
4. Managing Claims
Filing claims for medical insurance entails complex procedures, data entry, processing, and evaluation. Don’t forget that claim appeals are also included in the claim process. Many inaccuracies and inefficiencies will occur if claim management is not streamlined using technology.
Timely claim settlement is a boon for the patients and for your facility’s reputation.
Healthcare organizations can easily send claims to insurance companies by utilizing RPA. It facilitates and streamlines the processes required to meet the required standard. Apart from that, RPA bots accelerate claim data processing while eliminating errors. Failure to update claims can have a negative impact on hospital cost-reduction strategies.
5. Giving Discharge Instructions
Patients may be discharged with prescriptions, dietary instructions, and other medical instructions that must be followed. Monitoring all these medical instructions can be difficult.
However, RPA makes it simple because bots can remind patients about medication, appointments, and diagnostic tests. This can be usually done if your hospital or healthcare brand already has an app through which these notifications can be sent out.
More Benefits of RPA in Healthcare
While we discussed the various use cases of RPA in healthcare above, you would have understood the magnitude of the operational cost saving that it can do in your business. However, let us take you through some more benefits of RPA in healthcare.
More resource bandwidth is available
Reducing operating costs in healthcare makes available resources for other critical work areas. When most of the mundane, repetitive work is done by the RPA bot, you are better able to utilize your professionals in more profit-generating functions of the business.
For most healthcare facilities that we have worked with, this has been a game changer.
Errors Reduced or Prevented
RPA reduces risk or errors because of reduced human operations, resulting in more effective treatment and lesser losses. The automation tool does improve administrative operations thus, reduce hospital operating costs.
The error can lead to massive operating losses which are irreparable. Hospitals waste $11 billion a year on inefficient communication. These can be compensated neither in terms of the time wasted nor the money spent on it.
Access and Data Transfer Made Simple
The automation of patient data transfer and access is critical. Many healthcare facilities that use RPA make the process faster. Furthermore, it enables them to add the patient’s information once it is collected, allowing the facility to share the data between departments and other facilities if necessary. Data sharing is beneficial among healthcare facilities, and RPA has made it simple because the facility can easily share the data.
Sharing information between multiple systems will give a good chance of understanding the process. It will save time that could be spent on other appointments, provide more services to a greater number of patients, and assist patients in seeking alternative treatments.
Increased Privacy
Patient health information must be always protected. Case management automation solutions will assist in ensuring that the healthcare organization complies with the configured user. Only authorized personnel should have access to patients’ health information.
If you haven’t been able to imagine it yet, this results in massive cost savings from a litigation standpoint which hospitals and healthcare companies burn a lot of cash on.
Patient Satisfaction Has Increased
A variety of factors in the healthcare system influence patient satisfaction but the level of care that a patient receives at the healthcare facility is one of the most important factors. Other important factors that will make the client happy include proper appointment scheduling, checking in, and completion.
Conclusion – Reducing operating costs in healthcare
A successful RPA implementation in healthcare necessitates comprehensive planning to identify areas where automation can yield benefits, identify available resources to aid in the implementation, and consider whether a partnership can accelerate the process with additional skill sets or resources. It must also implement a long-term process automation strategy that will ultimately result in reducing operating costs in healthcare.
Connect with us at Vraimatic to discover how our RPA solutions can help you improve the profitability of your healthcare setup.
