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Reducing Wait Times, Increasing Productivity: The Benefits of Digital Call Deflection

Kara Bodner

Did you know that 60% of patients hang up after just one minute on hold? High call volumes can be a pain for both patients and healthcare staff. Patients are left waiting on hold, while staff are overwhelmed with repetitive calls.

The frustration also impacts your business. According to a recent report, 20% of patients say they would change providers to avoid long wait times.

Digital Call Deflection offers patients the option to switch to self-service SMS instead of waiting on hold. They can schedule appointments, request Rx refills, get directions, and more, all without the frustration of waiting on hold. Meanwhile, staff don’t need to monitor a chat line and have fewer calls waiting on hold to answer.

A better, more self-service experience reduces both the number of calls staff need to handle and the risk of losing patients to abandoned calls.

Luma’s self-service SMS chat flows are also configurable and conversational.

The results speak for themselves:

  • At Main Line Health, a regional health system integrating Luma with Epic, over 20% of patients opted for SMS, saving more than 15,000 minutes on the phone scheduling mammograms and DEXA scans. 
  • At GPW Health Center, a federally qualified health center (FQHC) integrating Luma with eClinicalWorks, more than 25% of patients switched to SMS for a self-scheduling link rather than wait on hold.
  • At KC Pain Centers, a specialty group integrating Luma with eClinicalWorks, nearly three-quarters of patients who chose to self-service via SMS did so to schedule or manage appointments.

Evelin Manzanares, COO at GPW Health Center, noted, “As a federally qualified health center, we need to serve as many patients as possible while reducing strain on our staff. Luma’s Digital Call Deflection has allowed 25% of our patients to self-serve via text message, ultimately helping them get what they need while our staff focus on more complex calls.”

Digital Call Deflection is a powerful tool for reducing hold times and inbound call volume while providing a better experience for both patients and staff. Want to see DCD in action? Schedule a product demo today.