Administrative duties take up a large part of healthcare workers’ time. Doctors and clinical staff spend almost 34% of their work hours on paperwork and other administrative tasks instead of seeing patients. This costs a lot, with the U.S. healthcare system spending about $250 billion every year on these tasks. These jobs include scheduling, billing, checking insurance, making medical records, and answering patient questions.
These tasks often cause delays, long wait times for patients, and staff feeling tired. Many calls come in about billing and money, which makes work harder for staff. To improve patient experience and lower costs, healthcare groups are using artificial intelligence (AI) to take over repetitive and simple tasks.
AI voice programs, like Cedar’s Kora, are a new tool for healthcare administration. These virtual helpers automate phone calls from patients, especially about medical billing and front-office phone calls. Using natural language processing (NLP) and advanced machine learning (ML), these AI systems understand patient questions, reply in a conversational way, and provide help 24 hours a day.
For example, Kora was created by Cedar with Twilio and is used by big healthcare providers like ApolloMD, which manages 138 hospitals and more than 4 million patient visits. Kora answers up to 30% of billing calls, which lowers wait times and lets staff focus on harder problems. Working all day and night, AI voice agents remove delays caused by long phone lines or not enough staff.
Healthcare providers often see changes in patient call numbers, especially during billing times, insurance changes, or health crises. Usually, handling these busy times means hiring more staff or working longer hours, which costs more money. AI voice technology can handle many calls without needing extra people.
ApolloMD’s use of Kora shows this well. About 30% of their patient billing calls are handled by the AI, which cuts wait times and makes patients happier. AI agents do not get tired or annoyed and always respond the same way, making work smoother and patients more satisfied.
Staff shortages, especially in administration, are a big problem. Budgets and rising wages limit how many new people can be hired. Using AI helps healthcare groups use their current workers better. Human staff can then do tasks that need judgment and care. This reduces burnout by cutting down on repeated, routine questions that the AI can answer.
Medical billing in the U.S. is often very confusing. Patients call about things like co-payments, deductibles, insurance claims, and detailed billing statements. Over 97% of questions Cedar’s AI handles are about billing, showing that patients find this hard to understand.
AI voice agents handle this by connecting with many healthcare vendors and insurance systems. This lets the AI get accurate and up-to-date information. It can then give detailed answers and help patients understand their bills. If a question is about something the insurance company manages, the AI directs patients there, avoiding frustration and many transfers.
Advanced AI systems can also notice how a patient sounds during the call. If patients seem confused or upset, the AI can pass the call to a live person. This helps patients get the right help and improves service quality.
AI voice technology also makes paying bills easier. Cedar works with companies like Stripe and Twilio to let patients pay medical bills safely during calls. These systems accept different payment types, such as Flexible Spending Accounts (FSAs) and Health Savings Accounts (HSAs), which many patients do not use fully each year because they don’t know about them.
By making it simple to use these financial tools through the voice assistant, healthcare providers help patients use their benefits. This lowers unpaid bills and improves money management for both patients and providers.
AI does more than just answer calls and manage billing questions. It also helps automate work and improve how healthcare offices run. AI virtual health assistants (VHAs) can handle many non-medical tasks like scheduling appointments, transcribing doctor notes, making reports, and communicating with patients.
Hospitals like Mayo Clinic and Cleveland Clinic use AI chatbots to organize scheduling, reduce missed appointments, and lower errors. Tools like Nuance’s Dragon Medical turn doctor-patient talks into electronic health records, saving time and cutting mistakes. This lets doctors focus more on patients and less on paperwork.
AI also helps with staff schedules by guessing patient demand and changing nurse shifts as needed. This helps avoid staff shortages and manage workloads. It helps hospitals keep care quality high while controlling costs.
Hospitals using AI see faster payments, fewer rejected claims, and more accurate billing. Automated work reduces manual data errors and speeds up insurance checks and payments.
Following data protection laws like HIPAA is very important when using AI in healthcare. Systems like Cedar’s Kora have strong privacy and security measures, like encryption and access control. These keep patient information safe during calls and payments, helping healthcare groups meet rules.
Even with these protections, providers must keep good cybersecurity and watch AI use closely to stop hacks or unauthorized data access.
One big benefit of AI voice assistants is they provide 24/7 patient communication. Patients get answers fast without waiting on hold or calling during short office hours. This helps patients manage bills and health plans better.
AI voice agents also sound natural. According to Amy Katnik, COO of ApolloMD, the AI “sounds just like people” and handles calls smoothly without being upset or angry. This gives a calm, professional experience no matter how hard the question is.
Supporting many languages and responding to how patients feel makes healthcare more accessible to different groups.
AI voice technology in healthcare is improving all the time. New features are coming, like real-time predictions that forecast how many calls will come and what financial needs patients have. This lets healthcare providers get ready with enough staff and resources.
There is interest in expanding AI to act as digital helpers who guide patients through their whole healthcare bills. These helpers could check if patients qualify for aid, offer financial plans, and help call centers with tips and sorting calls.
As AI voice gets closer to sounding human, virtual talks will get better, lowering how often people need to talk to live agents except for tough or private cases.
For medical practice leaders in the U.S., using AI voice technology can help manage growing administrative work. This technology cuts costs by reducing need for big call centers and temporary workers.
IT managers face challenges when adding AI to current phone systems and electronic health records. Companies like Cedar work with partners such as Twilio and Stripe to create safe, rule-following platforms that fit into healthcare systems.
Admins focused on patient satisfaction and staff workloads see that AI reduces phone wait times, gives consistent service, and frees human workers to handle cases needing attention or care. This can mean better patient loyalty, less staff quitting, and smoother front-office work.
Using AI voice agents and workflow automation helps U.S. healthcare providers manage ongoing administrative problems. These tools handle changing call numbers well, lower staff stress, improve billing experiences, and make workflow better. This is very important as healthcare faces staffing shortages and rising administrative costs.
Cedar’s AI voice agent, Kora, automates patient billing calls for healthcare providers, answering billing questions, explaining charges, identifying payment options, and connecting patients with financial assistance, all in a conversational, human-like manner.
Kora reduces friction by eliminating hold times, providing 24/7 support, understanding natural language and sentiment, supporting multiple languages, and giving personalized financial pathways to help patients manage payments effectively.
Kora tackles staffing shortages, irregular call volumes, and rising administrative costs by automating billing inquiries, thus improving call center efficiency and enabling staff to focus on complex tasks.
Kora integrates with various healthcare ecosystem vendors to provide accurate information and help patients navigate complicated billing issues that often span providers and payers.
Kora is developed with HIPAA-compliant privacy and security safeguards ensuring patient data protection during billing interactions.
Kora can detect sentiment and tone in interactions, allowing it to respond empathetically and escalate to a live agent when necessary, enhancing patient experience.
ApolloMD reports reduced hold times, improved patient satisfaction, and expects around 30% of billing calls to be handled autonomously by Kora by year-end.
By collaborating with Twilio and Stripe, Cedar enables secure phone payments, including management of FSAs and HSAs, helping patients maximize their available financial resources.
Cedar aims to evolve Kora into a digital concierge navigating the entire healthcare financial journey, offering personalized financial assistance, eligibility assessments, and supporting call center staff with predictive data.
AI voice agents reduce reliance on costly call centers, handle high call volumes efficiently, improve patient satisfaction through empathetic engagement, and enable healthcare staff to focus on complex, high-value interactions.
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