7 Applications of RPA in Healthcare

Introduction

 

Gartner Report 2021 has brought a good news for the Robotic Process Automation (RPA) providers; a recent Gartner report estimates that in the next three years, nearly 50% of US healthcare providers will invest in the RPA. 

 

As the concepts of e-health and digital health are gaining popularity in the modern world, more healthcare providers are ready to accelerate the digital adoption of robots and automated softwares. 

 

To put it simply, RPA refers to the technology that is taking over the redundant, monotonous tasks of humans. For example: feeding data entries, doing regular oiling of machines, and hazardous mining. 

 

Let’s evaluate the importance of RPA in the Healthcare industry. 

 

 

Importance of RPA In Healthcare

 

One of the biggest challenges the healthcare industry faces is data arrangement and personalized patient attention. It is extremely difficult to arrange the patient’s previous data, check into the patient's regular routine and to provide personalized attention. 

 

For that cause RPA has a crucial role to play in the healthcare industry, it can remind you about upcoming doctor’s appointments and can help you with simple digital payments. 

 

The automated software will also help in claims processing so from scheduling to paying bills RPA has got your back.

 

(Related Reading:- Significance of Process Mining to Accelerate RPA)

 

Let’s read about the applications of RPA in the healthcare industry. 

 

 

7 Use Cases of RPA in Healthcare Industry 

 

 

1. Scheduling New Appointments:- 

 

Scheduling a new appointment is no easy thing. First matching up the patient’s schedule then rechecking the doctor's schedule to arrange a perfect date and time sometimes takes long hours of extensive research. 

 

Multiple patients book appointments everyday and this monotonous task of scheduling patient’s appointments can be entirely automated by RPA robots. The robots can look into the patient’s data, and can direct the appointment request to the nearby doctor’s clinic. 

 

A robot can be programmed to look for clinics in the nearby areas and to match up the timing, date and area. It will help the patients who are looking for a doctor nearby. Robots can also segregate the appointment requests of different departments like ophthalmology, oncology and ENT. 

 

Patients can also chat with chatbot to schedule an online appointment. Telehealth applications like Plushcare, Doctor on Demand, LiveHealth, MD Live can be used for booking online appointments.

 

 

2. Claims Processing and Claim Settlement:- 

 

Settling up a healthcare insurance claim takes time, multiple conditions are to be ticked off from a list to finally arrive at “your came has been settled proposition”. At times this phenomenon takes so much time that it makes the patient’s family devastated. 

 

Normally to get an insurance claim settled the claimant has to present details like original policy certificate, medical bills, and hospital discharge receipts. If any of the document goes missing, the insurance company discards the claimant’s settlement request. 

 

With RPA, the claims processing task can be simplified. RPA can help in quick settlement of insurance in four easy ways:- 

 

• Robots can collect various sources of data to create a personalized dashboard for every patient. 

• The collected data can be used to fill in the details.

•  Post detail submission the claim can be settled by automated softwares. 

• Post claim settlement the automated software will credit the amount in the user’s bank account. 

 

Applied Epic, PegaClaims Management, GuideWire Claim Centre are some applications that can evaluate insurance claims and can settle them automatically. 

 

(Must Check:- 5 Applications of NLP in Healthcare)

 

 

3. Automatic Settlement of Medical Bills:- 

 

As the world is moving towards digital transformation, payment and repayment of medical bills is also being automated. Medical bills contain information like patient registration, and insurance verification details. 

 

In a digital economy people prefer to pay online and RPA can simplify these payment procedures. Auto billing can save both consumers and retailers time. The bills can be generated on demand which further saves effort.

 

Auto- billing means the automatic payment of bills at a specified time. Once an auto bill is generated it will automatically debit the amount from users credit card, debit card, or bank account on a given date. 

 

Medical bills will be automatically adjusted, the spent on bill adjustment and bill payment can be spent on other important tasks. RPA will also reduce the chances of error and automated payment will help both the consumers and the pharmacist. 

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Healthcare robots can assist doctors in multiple tasks (Image Source:- The Telegraph )

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4. Making Regular Data Entries:- 

 

Medical records play a crucial role in the overall patient treatment. They contain information about patient’s medical history, patient’s medical diagnosis and patient’s recent medical reports. 

 

Recording a data entry is a routine and monotonous task. Same details are to be filled in the system everyday; RPA can automate this boring process of data entry. 

 

RPA bots can be customized as per the data entry requirements. First the RPA bots can be programmed to check the data and feed in the proper entries, they can also be used to organize the recorded data. 

 

A recent survey conducted by software development firm Signity Solutions reveals that RPA data entry can cut down the business costs by 70%. 

 

Following are the four steps involved in the data entry processing through RPA tools:- 

 

• Rough collection of data that contains important information

• Extracting the required data from the collected data

• Importing the data in the ERP (Employee Resource Planning) system

• Using the imported data to fill in the data entries 

 

RPA tools like Blue Prism, Automation Anywhere, UiPath are used for making regular data entries. 

 

 

5. Simplify the Communication Procedure:- 

 

RPA can simplify the communication procedure for hospitals. A hospital receives multiple queries in a day to enquire about doctors, to schedule appointments and to book services in the case of an emergency.

 

 It is not possible for a human to be present at all times, and therefore chatbots can be deployed to simplify the communication procedure. 

 

Healthcare chatbots like OneRemission, Youper, Babylon health, and Florence work like a personal healthcare assistant. These applications can customize diets, suggest exercises and changes in the routine that further helps a patient to organize their daily routines. Some applications can also be used to set medicine reminders. 

 

In an era where people have less time, RPA can actually work as a real saviour. Healthcare robots like Grace can understand a patient and can actually talk to them. Robots are also conducting talk therapies which further provides assistance to the patients.

 

(Related Blog:- How is RPA used in Big Data?)

 

 

6. Recording the Discharge Details and Streamlining Discharge Procedure:- 

 

Every hospital has a long instruction manual that a patient is required to follow before their discharge. For the final discharge day the patient’s family is first required to take written permission from the doctor for the discharge. 

 

Post taking the permission a nurse prepares the patient’s file and the file is further sent for clearance. After the fee clearance procedure, the doctor issues a discharge note. 

 

The long discharge procedure can be cut short by the RPA bots; the bots can be programmed to check for the details and can be further wired to process discharge quickly. 

 

This will help both the doctors and the patients; the simplified process is helpful as it saves the long time and huge efforts that are required for processing a discharge. 

 

 

7. Simplifies the Audit Task:- 

 

Hospitals conduct regular audits to check for the quality of the services that are being delivered to the patients. Audits are conducted to assess the regular services. These audits help a hospital to evaluate and look for the areas that need improvement. 

 

An auditor checks the book of bills, and the bills register to check for  the amount that is entered in the amounts. The task of checking each and every bill is redundant and can be completely automated by the RPA tools. 

 

Open source RPA tools like Automai, AnotherMonday, Help Systems and Kofax can be used to make audits. RPA automates the standard processes in automation and conducts statistical data analysis. 

 

These tools can be employed  to collect and optimize data from the past sources, and for conducting password tests. 

 

 

Conclusion

 

That one robot has reduced someone’s work by a factor of 50. It really showed the power of RPA to help achieve our digitization strategy – not just to us but to our customers in the hospitals. It showed we could deliver the agility and efficiency that they need.  - Børge KnHead of the Customer and Support Department CDR

 

The RPA tools are excellent for the healthcare industry, they can provide assistance to the clinical departments and can further improve the working system of hospitals. In times of emergency the chatbots can quickly schedule the appointment which further saves the patient’s time. Hospitals are now extensively deploying robots for simpler tasks like medicine delivery.