Importance of Robotic Process Automation in healthcare
The healthcare industry is facing the biggest challenges (and opportunities) in the prevailing situation. Traditional modes of delivery of care have been disrupted, coordinating patient care is driving the demand for sharing data across silos and technology is playing a vital role in enabling remote diagnostics, tracking treatment effectiveness, and monitoring patients while they recover at home. Conventional norms are being challenged. The changes however are accompanied by a different set of considerations that need to be addressed – Data privacy and Cybersecurity for instance. So how can all these be overcome?
Healthcare providers have to manage the massive amounts of patient data, triage the cases, optimize appointment scheduling and treatments and expedite billing & claims management. Apart from being HIPAA compliant, they also have to ensure error-free streamlining and execution of the tasks, which usually prove to be a gargantuan effort. However, these pain points can be overcome by automating the entire process.
Robotic Process Automation (RPA) in Healthcare Industry
The convergence of robotic process automation in healthcare industry has helped providers accelerate their digital transformation journey. AI-powered RPA has helped the industry deliver efficient services across the value chain – from patient experience to claims management and revenue cycle management to analytics.
CAQH in its eighth annual report stated that automating healthcare administrative transactions has reduced annual costs by $122 billion, $16.3 billion more can be saved through further automation. Gaining traction in the healthcare industry, RPA has enabled automation of routine and repetitive tasks, thereby freeing healthcare professionals to focus more on the much-needed human element — patient care.
How RPA enhances healthcare service
Implementing robotic process automation can channel more resources and optimize healthcare tasks that are of prime importance.
Improved patient support with RPA in healthcare
One of the most important tasks rendered by healthcare organizations is providing ideal care according to each patient’s unique needs. With RPA implementation, healthcare providers have witnessed significant improvement in triage and the resulting patient-facing operations.
Robotic process automation simplifies and streamlines the entire procedure, right from patient data collection to insurance claims. Bots can manage patient appointments as per location, test results, and doctor availability. They can also assist patients with upcoming appointment notifications, medical tests, prescription pick-ups, and discharge guidelines.
Error-free and reduced repetitive work
In RPA, bots replace human involvement in repetitive tasks like patient onboarding, data extraction/migration, appointment/treatment scheduling, and claim management among others. This means work is done in a considerably less amount of time with no errors.
Automating healthcare processes can help providers reduce critical errors and achieve 100% accuracy rates while providing patient care. Data collected from the patient can be processed as per diagnosis and location, matched with the relevant doctor. In case of the doctor’s unavailability, a bot will automatically reschedule and inform the patient of the change, avoiding confusion and hassle.
Reduced operational costs
By embracing RPA, healthcare organizations can reduce operating costs significantly, while leveraging a cost-effective workforce. Increased automation enhances process efficiency, allowing staff to spend less time on tedious manual tasks.
Traditional methods involved manual data entry, scheduling, record maintenance, and claims management, each of which involved a considerable number of people. Since every task was done manually, there could be errors, and rework could come with a cost. RPA implementation standardizes the entire lifecycle, eliminates rework and corrections.
Reduced Data Breaches
Ensuring the privacy and security of sensitive patient data is one of the top concerns for healthcare organizations. Using RPA ensures that private information can only be accessed by the appropriate staff. This role-based access minimizes data breaches or improper use of data.
RPA allows healthcare providers to control data access and ensure that only the relevant staff can access private information when required. This control is critical since doctors, IT staff, and the claims departments need varying levels of access to classified patient data.
HIPAA and other regulatory compliances
Robotic process automation helps maintain compliance by securing medical data and ensuring all processes are in line with HIPAA and other regulatory bodies. Custom reports and detailed audit logs can also be maintained.
Healthcare providers may use different applications to store and access patient data. Securing such a vast amount of information can be complicated and prove to be challenging. With RPA, HIPAA compliance becomes easier to manage. Audit controls can also be easily implemented using process automation. Detailed audit histories can be set up automatically and any time there’s an internal or external audit, auditors can easily access the data.
Automation is here to stay. RPA is flexible to automate any procedure and is basically to help clear the clutter, thereby streamlining the entire process. With RPA around, even searching for a needle in a haystack will seem effortless.
The Trigent Advantage
With change happening at a rapid pace, the healthcare industry is transitioning to automation to offer better outcomes to patients. Be it migrating from a legacy system, updating a current workflow, or even on advisory, Trigent is your go-to partner for all your technology requirements. Our RPA experts will take care of the entire cycle from adaption to managing, while your healthcare providers do what they do best-providing optimal patient care.
