Ahead of the marcus evans National Healthcare CXO Summits 2023, Yuriy Kotlyar discusses how healthcare organizations can capture additional revenue with a more efficient patient scheduling process.

1. Interview with: Yuriy Kotlyar, Chief
Executive Officer, American Health
Connection
“When patients call a healthcare
provider’s call center to schedule an
appointment and experience long wait
times or cannot connect directly with a
scheduling agent, they look for alterna-
tive solutions. The result is lost revenue
for the organization. A healthcare call
center is often misconstrued as an
expense, but in fact, it’s a revenue-
generating department. That is how
patients generally get access to their
Provider,” says Yuriy Kotlyar, Chief
Executive Officer of American Health
Connection.
American Health Connection is a service
provider at marcus evans National
Healthcare CXO Summits 2023.
What are the gaps in the way most
healthcare organizations communi-
cate with patients and schedule
appointments?
There are two sides to a healthcare call
center. On the patient-facing side, when
patients call a healthcare provider, they
often experience long wait times or get
transferred numerous times, which
causes frustration, or the call center is
closed after hours and on weekends.
On the facility side, many executives
don’t realize the quantitative and
qualitative benefits of the call center.
They don’t know if it is performing
efficiently. Executives don’t see the call
center as a direct source of revenue. A
call center is a complex business that
requires hands-on management. A
traditional call center can’t easily predict
the number of agents throughout the
week when a high volume of calls come
in mid-day on Mondays versus Friday
afternoons. Agents must be scheduled
to work when call volumes require
resources and when it is convenient for
the patient to call, not necessarily when
the center is open. It is difficult to
calculate what business is lost just by
not answering all calls, but our experi-
ence suggests it is over 15 percent.
Why do you think there is a general
lack of understanding of how to
make the transition to a fully virtual
centralized scheduling process?
Traditionally, the healthcare call center
has always been in-house. When we
established our company, not many, if
any, facilities had call centers. We were
the first to handle patient communica-
tions for hospitals and clinics virtually.
You need space, technology that
supports your operations, and staff to
answer calls, train, recruit, supervise,
and maintain the call center. It’s
challenging to find qualified staff.
Facilities often have to hire people
without experience and train them from
scratch. Turnover is caused by unquali-
fied staff quitting or qualified staff being
recruited by another facility.
On the other hand, having a virtual call
center can present additional difficulties.
Most healthcare facilities lack the level
of detailed management required.
Management is the key. As examples,
managers must constantly monitor
attendance, staffing, quality, workflows,
and patient complaints. AHC has a team
of auditors constantly checking and
managing every detail.
Call center agents should be able to
handle almost any type of call, which at
AHC, we call a One-call solution. That
includes scheduling appointments of any
kind, verifying insurance, pre-
registration, physician referral, knowing
physician specifics and preferences, etc.
All of that must happen at the most
convenient time for the patient. There
are many intricacies in the scheduling
process.
Any final thoughts?
Healthcare facilities have outsourced
many functions that are not directly
related to patient care, such as IT,
transcription, facilities management,
coding, and many others. Executives
should realize that the call center is no
different. Just like the ones above, this
task needs to be handled by an experi-
enced organization specializing in call
center operations.
The way we customize the service,
patients will not realize they are not
talking directly to the facility. In turn,
the organization will see increased
business, reasonably significant cost
savings, and better patient KPI and
service levels.
Treating the Healthcare Call Center
as a Revenue Generator
Many
executives don’t
realize the
quantitative
and qualitative
benefits of the
call center

2. About American Health Connection
American Health Connection (AHC) offers the healthcare industry’s only all-inclusive, full-service, virtual central scheduling and
patient communications services. Our Patient Communication Management® service encompasses a suite of customized, scalable
services that seamlessly and cost-effectively streamline all aspects of the patient scheduling and engagement process.
Our comprehensive solutions are designed to dramatically improve scheduling and registration workflow, enhance patient and
physician satisfaction, maximize client resource utilization and reduce costs.
www.americanhealthconnection.com
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