A published study covering 800,000 calls in healthcare contact centers over a four-year period reported that:

Contact Centers drive revenue and profitability

• The average contact center caller generates $13,848 in hospital charges within 12 months after calling, versus $5,524 for patients overall
• Every telephone call represents over $4,000 in downstream charges within 12 months
• Contact center callers have more managed care coverage (HMO/PPO) and less Medicaid coverage than non-callers. Contact center callers are twice as likely to be self-pay than non-callers
• One-out-of-four callers contacting the contact center will have an inpatient or outpatient visit within the next 12 months

Contact Centers support patient loyalty

• Conduct nurse-directed symptom-based triage using clinical guideline protocols which have successfully triaged over 5 million calls at Cleveland Clinic; direct appropriate utilization: refer to the clinically appropriate, cost-effective care site as a tool to reduce costly utilization of the Emergency Department for primary care
• While the contact center is recognized as an important customer service function, it should also be viewed as a powerful revenue/profit center
• 20 percent of all hospital customers will call the contact center in a given year
• 60 percent of callers are repeat callers. Repeat callers use more hospital services than one-time callers
• Retention rate for contact centers is 70 percent versus 46 percent for non-contact center callers (“retention rate” is defined as multiple hospital visits)

Contact Centers attract customers from groups that hospitals target

• 71 percent of all callers are women, and 74 percent are between 21-45 years old
• Seniors represent 18 percent of callers, but account for one-third of downstream charges
• Contact center callers have 25 percent more income than non-contact center callers
• Contact center callers are more engaged, spend more time making healthcare decisions, and use the Internet at a higher rate