RPA In Healthcare: Automate Appointments, Communications, Claims, and Other Operations

Around 80% of organizations consistently invest in hyper-automation initiatives, including healthcare robotic process automation.

What makes this technology so popular? Robotic process automation in healthcare streamlines most of the user-related operations. While software schedules meetings, manages claims, runs billing and other processes, your team focuses on treatment. Such optimization is life-saving, given that the shortage of physicians will reach between 37,800 and 124,000 specialists in the next ten years, putting a lot of strain on providers.

Do you consider adopting RPA software in your organization? Our healthcare software development company knows a lot about it and shares takeaways below.

What is RPA in healthcare?

RPA (or robotic process automation) is a technology that mimiсs the back-office operations completed by human workers with the help of automation. It enables organizations to extract data, move files, fill in forms, and send messages using software solutions.

How does the technical side of robotic process automation look?

RPA software leverages APIs and user interface (UI) interactions to run repetitive tasks, activities, and transactions across unrelated applications. All these operations are executed autonomously by scripts.

Custom vs. ready-made RPA in healthcare

RPA services for the healthcare industry have two main formats. You can choose one of the available solutions (e.g., FeatSystems, CloudMedx, and Contus) or use engineering services for custom healthcare robotic process automation. The latter option is usually preferable since RPA in healthcare has multiple implementations, and the operational needs of every healthcare organization greatly vary.

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The current state of healthcare robotic process automation

If you doubt whether your organization needs to invest in RPA for healthcare, you should know what's happening in the market.

Based on estimates, the global robotic process automation segment will reach .2 billion by 2025 with a 32.6% CAGR. It's a huge leap and an unprecedented growth rate.

Enterprise-level companies are the primary consumers of RPA in healthcare, with the largest revenue share of over 66.47% in 2021. According to Statista , 90% of large healthcare organizations have an AI and automation strategy. 34% have implemented automation solutions.

They mainly deploy RPA to cut time on conventional activities and channel the efforts into strategic decision-making.

Even though the SME segment is comparatively smaller, it grows faster. Since small and medium organizations have limited human resources and budgets, they view RPA in healthcare as a way to manage operational expenses. RPA implementation can result in 25–50% savings in healthcare.

Overall, nearly 50% of US healthcare providers will invest in RPA by 2023, up from 5% in 2020. As a result, 20% of patient interactions will involve some form of AI, including RPA.

If you don't want to lose to competitors in terms of productivity and customer service, you should at least schedule the implementing smart automation in the nearest future. Why? Because t can benefit many operations, from appointment scheduling to billing.

RPA use cases in healthcare industry

Healthcare providers complete many critical tasks that require personal interactions between team members and patients. At the same time, many standard healthcare operations are repetitive and routine. With proper automation, the software can complete them no worse (or even better) than human workers. These are the RPA use cases in healthcare.

1. Appointment scheduling

Online booking is popular among healthcare providers, with 58% using it . But despite many meetings arranged online, they still process a large share of requests manually. When a new inquiry arrives, healthcare team members need to check it, find the patient's profile, match the timing with the doctor's schedule, and ask for additional details if something is missing.

Healthcare robotic process automation can optimize each of these steps. In particular, you can automate patient data collection and scheduling through RPA bots. These bots process the patient's request to find openings in the doctor's schedule and offer options. Once the patient picks the time, the bot books an appointment and records it in the database automatically.

This is one of the RPA use cases in healthcare that reduces the load on the support team and eliminates human errors. Besides, the service becomes much faster, benefiting the overall customer satisfaction.

2. Patient pre-arrival and arrival

After a patient arranges a meeting with clinicians, many manual processes are left for automation. You will need to onboard the person and obtain all the information required to provide healthcare services.

RPA in healthcare can do it for you. Automated tools assist with the check-in, validate the health plan coverage, and arrange preauthorization for planned procedures and treatments. They verify the patient's insurance carrier or ID number to avoid typos and mistakes than happen with manual data entry.

3. Claims management RPA healthcare use case

Based on recent data, 30-40% of healthcare claims lead to edits or exceptions that can end with denials. It delays insurance payments, harming healthcare organizations and patients that depend on timely RPA in healthcare claims processing. Besides, the cost of human labor to consider a single claim often exceeds the potential reimbursement . As a result, healthcare organizations suffer from sufficient financial losses.

Healthcare robotic process automation is viewed as one of the ways to handle claims more efficiently and increase acceptance rates. Bots can automatically prepare documents, populate insurance claims, and ensure error-free document submission.

Since automation allows processing more requests simultaneously, claims are resolved faster. The application of RPA in healthcare also enhances data quality and regulatory compliance due to the minimized risk of human error.

4. Customer communications

Like any other type of service connecting people, healthcare services depend on the quality of communication. As the strain on healthcare providers increases and the volume of remote care grows, quick online interactions become a problem. Without the application of RPA in healthcare, providers cannot process all requests they receive. They also cannot efficiently communicate with other stakeholders like insurers.

That's when robotic process automation in the healthcare industry steps in. RPA intelligence enables organizations to automate communications with customers and other parties involved. Such software can send automated website responses, manage first-line customer service calls, deliver trigger-based emails, etc.

5. Administrative data entry

When unoptimized, record-keeping requires a lot of time and resources. Healthcare providers hold a large volume of administrative data they need to update, format, and keep in order regularly. It includes information on claims, patient enrollment or eligibility, and provided services.

Software with the application of RPA in healthcare simplifies administrative data management. It captures data from multiple sources and converts it into structured information using NLP, speech and image recognition, and bots. As a result, the information stored in a database has the same format and all required details.

6. Remote care

Healthcare providers that support solutions for remote patient care may need to simultaneously communicate with hundreds of patients. By 2025, there will be 70.6 million remote patient monitoring users in the US, up from 45.1 million in 2022. It means the flow of remote patients will rapidly grow.

The only way to handle so many requests is robotic process automation in healthcare. RPA automates repetitive tasks related to customer support and care. It enables healthcare providers to send follow-up messages and custom communications throughout the patient's treatment cycle. Since the responses are recorded automatically, record-keeping is also optimized.

Besides, you can program bots to send reminders about post-treatment medications, recommended physical activity, regime, and other essentials.

7. Robotic process automation for medical billing

Unlike the alternatives, RPA automates the whole process, from extracting utility bill data to conducting validation checks, quarantining an incorrect invoice, and transferring the bill to a payment file that connects to the accounting system. With the application of robotic process automation for medical billing , all of this happens automatically and in a fraction of the time.

Examples of robotic process automation in healthcare

We've selected some examples to give you a better idea of how healthcare robotic process automation looks in real life. These companies have already adopted RPA services for the healthcare industry and are getting some tangible advantages.

GAM Pharmaceuticals

GAM , a pharmaceutical company, has nearly 700 employees serving 17,000 clients across the pharmaceutical, hospital, and supermarket industries. To cover such a volume of operations and ensure growth, GAM needs to handle large volumes of back-office operations. These are repetitive tasks like copying and pasting information from one system to another, preparing price quotations, etc.

If the company continued to perform these operations manually, it wouldn't be able to scale and ensure smooth customer services. That's why GAM's management turned to cloud-based robotic process automation.

They used the IBM cloud automation pack to automate 22 processes within 12 months. It allowed the company to save 25,000 USD per year on employee salaries and enhance customer service.

Max Healthcare

Max Healthcare is a large Indian hospital chain with 14 hospitals. They had a problem with managing a large volume of patient transactions. It affected claims processing, administrative data entry, and data reconciliation, resulting in mistakes and low productivity.

These challenges nudged them into adopting the UiPath RPA platform to optimize processes, structure information, improve data quality, and manage data frequency spikes. As a result of RPA applications in healthcare, Max Healthcare reduced the turnaround time by at least 50%, improved compliance, and prepared for the digital transformation of other business operations.

Potential obstacles to RPA implementation in healthcare

Despite the tangible benefits, robotic process automation in the healthcare industry is not easy. You are likely to face many obstacles on your way to smooth and efficient operations. Here are the main ones:

• Poorly defined internal processes. Successful robotic process automation in the healthcare industry is possible only when you have well-defined, repeatable processes. They must consist of clear sequences of human actions you can replace with RPA features. Hence, if you don't identify what aspects of your daily operations allow for automation, you are likely to fail with the implementation of RPA in healthcare.
• Deciding where to start. Robotic process automation in the healthcare industry is a gradual process. You cannot optimize everything at once. The problem is that building an RPA roadmap is challenging and requires a combination of prior automation experience and technical expertise.
• Limitations of ready-made software. If you choose one of the available RPA services for the healthcare industry, you will inevitably face restrictions. The selected solution may not have all the necessary features. Its functionality and workflows won't be tailored to your organization's needs. Besides, any third-party solution has software licensing restrictions, so you may have trouble adding as many users as you need.
• Employee resistance. Finally, your employees are unlikely to support the transition to more advanced software. They won't be willing to abandon manual operations and undergo training to perform something more complicated. You will have to take it slowly and consider bonuses for those whose working routine will change forever.

If you want to avoid the challenges of RPA in healthcare, you'd better find a tech partner and outsource automation to professionals. Companies like Binariks specialize in implementing RPA for healthcare and can find the most efficient way to automate manual operations.

Third-party automation providers develop custom solutions to bypass the limitations of existing systems. This software is tailored to your organization's unique needs and has the right features.

How Binariks helps with implementing RPA in healthcare

Binariks is a software product development company providing RPA services for healthcare industry for the healthcare industry. We are among the top-rated app development companies in Ukraine and a certified AWS, Google Cloud, and Microsoft partner.

Our team of experienced software engineers has offered technical support to healthcare organizations for years, having completed numerous custom projects . A web platform for patient management with an automated medical record system is one of them.

We completed business analysis to pick the best collaboration model and tech stack for every customer. Afterward, we assembled a dedicated team that can meet your engineering needs best.

Leave us a request now to talk about your project.

Final thoughts

RPA in healthcare is a leading trend every fast-growing or large organization needs to follow. It allows companies to free employees from mundane, repetitive tasks delegating them to bots and other automation solutions. As a result, healthcare providers become more productive, the risk of human errors reduces, and the revenue grows.

Yet it's worth noting that robotic process automation in the healthcare industry is challenging. Hence, you should consider outsourcing it to a third-party provider. Software engineering companies like Binariks can develop a custom healthcare robotic process automation strategy for you and assist with implementation.