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The second point (and often the first) of contact most Americans have with the healthcare system is with their insurance firms and providers over the phone.

And that is where the abrasion and the bleeding with the system both financially in high administration costs and patient i.e. client/customer experience occurs.

Too often callers are placed on hold for long periods of time or are forced to climb through tangled branches in IVR (DTMF and speech rec) menu trees, often getting lost but the ways out i.e. live agent zero outs are hidden or are sometimes nonexistent. With the high stress already present in healthcare-no one contacts a doctor or a hospital when they are feeling well--both the waits and the confusing tools are the last things patients and their families need.

With the passage of the Obama Administration's landmark healthcare reform legislation providers are examining and the savvy ones are finding ways to comply with the specifics and with the overall goals of supplying high-quality, affordable services to patients. One of the routes they need to examine is improving that patient/customer service experience.

Nuance points out that there is an opportunity for patients/customers, providers, and company and individual buyers through employing and improving automated IVR systems especially speech rec which permits a more natural interaction with these servers. The firm cites a commissioned report by DMG Consulting Using Voice Self-Service to Enhance the Customer Experience for Health Care Insurance Companies, which points to the following:

--Healthcare firms can reduce the cost of handling incoming customer care phone calls by $4.50-$9.50 per call, while also improving the customer experience and customer satisfaction

--By making simple menu changes and eliminating healthcare industry jargon from its automated customer care system, one leading healthcare insurance company that serves millions of customers increased the percentage of customers willing to use the system from 40 percent to 76 percent

--The study also shows how outbound communication to customers, using voice, e-mail, text messages and fax can reduce incoming calls and improve customer satisfaction

Says DMG Consulting: "The healthcare industry is under siege. It's clear that the government and the public - payers, providers and plan members - are displeased with the current state of medical insurance. The recently enacted healthcare legislation is certain to bring major changes to the industry.

"Insurance companies are unfairly blamed for many of the nation's health care woes because they are the "middlemen" in the process. Although they are not directly responsible for soaring medical costs, they are accountable for the poor and inconsistent service that they often provide to customers. It's one thing to tell prospects and customers that you care about them via advertisements, and another to demonstrate it when people need help. Delivering outstanding service to people in need is the most effective and proven technique for attracting and retaining customers. It's also a concept and practice that has eluded too many insurance providers."

"Insurance companies need to change the public's opinion and take control of their own complex operating environments. They need to demonstrate their commitment to clients by consistently delivering an outstanding customer experience while eliminating the complexity and inefficiencies that are the source of the dissatisfaction. For insurance companies, this includes a focus on customer-centric solutions, like voice and Web-based self-service portals that prioritize customer needs. It also means empowering contact center agents with the information they need to resolve customer inquiries at the point of initial contact."

Nuance (News - Alert), in turn, continues to improve its healthcare-specific speech solutions. It has just released Enterprise Turbo Speech 8.1, which is the background speech recognition component of the Dictaphone Enterprise Speech System that is designed for enterprise-wide, multi-specialty medical transcription (MT) use. Clinicians dictate as usual, while speech recognition produces highly accurate, formatted, draft documents for MT review and edit. 8.1 allows customers to deploy Enterprise Turbo Speech in IT environments where Microsoft's (News - Alert) latest technology is already in use, thereby expanding the system's compatibility with popular healthcare enterprise IT systems, as well as easing implementation and ongoing system management.

On average, Enterprise Turbo Speech customers are processing 85 percent of their dictation volume through background speech recognition, reports Nuance. Additionally, MTs are achieving productivity gains of up to 95 percent by editing documents versus traditional transcription.

"Not only must healthcare companies enable effective customer interactions with patients, but doctors, insurance companies and other healthcare professionals all increasingly require quick, accurate and easy-to-use call center channels," said Jay Castergine, Business Consulting Director Nuance.