RPA in Healthcare: Advancing the Quality of Patient Care Delivery

RPA in Healthcare: Advancing the Quality of Patient Care Delivery

The healthcare industry is at the forefront of technology advancements, capitalizing on advanced digital technologies for effective patient care delivery. Robotic process automation (RPA) is one such technology, streamlining healthcare activities and minimizing operational costs while enhancing the quality of patient care.

RPA is a fast-evolving AI technology that mimics tasks done by humans, such as back-office tasks, data collection and analysis, form filling, etc. This technology is used to automate workflow, infrastructure, and labor-intensive jobs. With its increasing ubiquity, the global RPA market is expected to reach $2.46 billion by 2022, at a CAGR of 30.14% during the projected period of 2017-2022.

Significance of RPA in Healthcare

The healthcare industry is one of the complex industries that deals with complex data sets and consists of multiple arduous tasks. For smooth processing of workflow in the industry requires extensive human resources, leading to high operational costs and slow processes. Implementing RPA and harnessing the power of automation provides healthcare systems to address these issues and make the processes more efficient and faster. RPA also helps improve the quality of patient care and satisfaction.

Robotic process automation typically performs as a software bot that interacts with an in-house application, website, and user portal. It can run on any device such as a computer, laptop, or mobile device. As it replaces repetitive and tedious tasks done by humans, healthcare providers can gain a lot of benefits from RPA.

Let’s have a closer look at how RPA could streamline healthcare processes.

RPA for Patient scheduling

In healthcare, patient scheduling is an important process. It can be tedious and costly for healthcare providers when it comes to appointment cancellation by patients. RPA has the potential to reduce the human healthcare professionals’ involvement in the patient scheduling process. It can aid in optimizing appointment turnout by managing appointments with patients. It can also positively impact patients by allowing them to schedule appointments sooner and faster, improving customer relations and retention.

RPA for Data Entry and Migration

The healthcare industry mostly relies on paper documents that need to be digitalized. Many healthcare providers are already digitizing patient information and storing electronically so that both doctors and patients can access them online from anytime, anywhere. Robotic process automation can be used to automate data migration from paper files and legacy systems to new systems. In other words, RPA accelerates the process and removes the dependency on employees to transfer patient records manually. This process will improve patient care by providing more transparency and easier access to medical records.

RPA for Claim Management

Claim management is of utmost importance in the healthcare industry. However, the processing and management of claims are time-consuming and error prone. This is mainly because a patient needs to visit the doctor, file an insurance claim, then he is billed for the remaining amount, and then his accounts receivables are monitored to ensure that he made the payment. In this process, inputting, processing and assessing documents and data are involved, making claim management more complex and time intensive. Leveraging RPA-driven claim management can remove human errors during claim processing. It can also increase efficiency and time management and help better control or custody of billings and claim processing.

RPA for Automated Monitoring of Accounts Payable/Receivable

RPA can be used in the monitoring of accounts payable and receivable. It can automate this process and improve billing efficiency and minimize write-offs. With RPA, payments will be made and received more quickly and effectively against it is performed by a human employee. This will also help in debt reduction and boost the financial performance of care providers.

RPA for Regulatory Compliance

Robotic process automation is effective in ensuring regulatory compliance. It enables healthcare providers to track, track, and record each step of the process in structured log files so that they can easily comply with external audits. These processes are managed and controlled by software robots, and the confidentiality of data is also improved. RPA sends data logs to concerned parties to ensure the accountability of healthcare providers’ practices. This significantly prepares healthcare organizations to handle and manage improvised and unexpected external audits if any.

RPA for Automated Patient Check-in

RPA has an application in automated patient check-in. Healthcare centers can install self-service kiosks with screens so that patients can put their information. The kiosks that embed scanners take a picture of the insurance card and, if necessary, the patient ID. RPA then automates the kiosk’s responses to the patient’s input that would upload their information in the classification system and enable the front desk employees to review the information of each patient.

The intelligent implementation of RPA software in healthcare can not only help automate processes, but also streamline and expedites processes.

RPA in Real World

Robotic process automation is capable of expediting claims processing, workflow management, patient remote monitoring, enhanced appointment turnout, and so on. Many healthcare providers are already benefiting from this technology.

For instance, Max Healthcare Institute, a hospital chain based in New Delhi, deals with the process of patient transaction data daily. The hospital chain wanted to simplify some manual processes, such as customer information recording, claims processing and reconciliation of data for government health schemes. By doing so, Max Healthcare was looking to improve the efficiency of existing processes and ensure greater precision and reduction in turnaround time.

The organisations joined hands with UiPath, an RPA consulting firm and has implemented its enterprise RPA platform to efficiently handle processes, such as claims processing, Data Reconciliation for Central Government Health Scheme (CGHS), and Data Reconciliation for Ex-servicemen Contributory Health Scheme (ECHS). As a result, Max Healthcare reduced the response time of the ongoing processes by at least 50% and saved time by 65%-75% in CGHS and ECHS. Along with this, RPA also paved the way for rapid digital transformation within the organization.

Final Thought

RPA has a significant positive impact on healthcare systems. It will help healthcare providers to reduce costs of operations and streamline activities while improving the quality of patient care. With the successful implementation of RPA software, doctors will be able to spend more time focusing on their patients and deliver better patient care. This will significantly make patients happier and increase satisfaction.