Run Log
AI use case of the week
A clinician starting a visit by apologizing for the wait is a sign that the front office problem has reached the exam room. At Graybill Medical Group, an independent multispecialty medical group in Southern California, patients were struggling to get through by phone while the organization was dealing with staffing shortages and the need to keep training new front-office workers.
Royce Cheng, chief product and technology officer at Third Way Health, a health care operations company, described the problem as bigger than call volume. Phone support, patient access and medical records all had to improve together.
Royce Cheng | Chief Product & Technology Officer, Third Way Health
Royce Cheng | Chief Product & Technology Officer, Third Way Health | Third Way Health
Third Way Health paired AI-supported workflows with live-agent support across those areas. One of the clearest changes was quality assurance. Instead of reviewing a small sample of calls, the system evaluates every call in more detail, with operations experts using those findings to adjust the process over time.
Patient-access operations often break down in small places: a missed call, an incomplete handoff, an unprocessed records request or a patient unable to reach the right person. By applying AI to every interaction rather than spot-checking a few, Graybill could see where the process was failing and correct it faster.
According to Cheng, the work at Graybill was associated with about $3 million in savings, a 50 percent reduction in front-office costs and a 24 percent reduction in no-shows. He said Graybill also saw a 1.5 percent call abandonment rate, a 20.2-second average wait time and a 4.8 out of 5 post-call customer satisfaction score.
“AI works best when it improves the operating model around the work,” Cheng said.
At Graybill, that meant using AI where the backlog was being created: in the calls, records requests and front-office routines that determine whether patients can get through.
Originally published: Newsweek