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Reaching More Patients With HIPAA Compliant Chat

How Potomac Pediatrics Revolutionized The Patient Experience

OVERVIEW

potomac pediatrics logo

Potomac Pediatrics is a primary care pediatric office that’s up to something big: revolutionizing the patient experience while providing award-winning, quality patient care.

In 2018, the pediatrics practice successfully implemented live chat and revolutionized their
patient experience.

Download the Case Study

The Challenge

Patient and doctor

The practice was founded in 2001 in Rockville, Maryland with a commitment to delivering comprehensive medical care to address their patients’ health and lifestyle needs. To do that, they needed to be accessible to patients in all the ways their patients expected — from the phone to the web to their mobile phones.

The Potomac Pediatrics team continued to expand services that went beyond the exam room and encouraged patient engagement. They began to offer unique classes and seminars that became popular around the community.

Patient volume was growing. This rapid growth created incoming call volume spikes – beyond what Potomac Pediatrics could handle with their existing staff. In 2018, they decided that a modern way to troubleshoot the escalating call volume would be to implement a chat solution.

But knowing that Protected Health Information (PHI) could not be exchanged with just any chat offering, the team was determined to find a chat technology platform that was compliant with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).

Jenna Vallejo, COO at Potomac Pediatrics, is focused on meeting patients where they want to be met. She led the initiative to find a website chat solution that would reduce call volume and overall time on the phone, while simultaneously connecting the Potomac Pediatrics team with a younger client base. Jenna worked to find a HIPAA-compliant technology, and more specifically, a chat solution that her patients could trust enough to potentially share PHI.

The Solution

In the search for the perfect live chat solution, Jenna looked at solutions that not only satisfied their HIPAA compliance requirements, but also sought an easy-to-use, end-to-end solution.

There were a few chat attributes that were most compelling for her team. These factors gave her the confidence to choose Messaging & Live Chat by TeamSupport and implement chat company-wide.

She needed a chat solution that satisfied the following requirements:

  • HIPAA-compliant
  • An industry leader with award-winning customer service
  • Compatible with all major browsers
  • Usable by multiple teams at the same time, from nurse advocates to administrative and reception staff
  • Offers a chat logging/archiving feature for future reference
  • Ability to easily transfer chats
  • Proactive chat implementable on every page

"In addition to HIPAA compliance, the ability to send and receive images and secure data is a huge plus. Those are ‘wow’ factors for our parents, they are amazed,” explains Jenna.

She also notes that “the fact that [Messaging & Live Chat] securely stores chat logs is as valuable as recording a phone call, because it’s easy for patients (or parents of young patients) to forget important information.” Jenna Vallejo, COO

The Results

Jenna identified two initial teams to use their new chat functionality: medical advice nurses and receptionists. Both were set up on the TeamSupport Conversations Hub. This gave both teams an easy and efficient way to converse with patients, and when needed, give medical advice.

The TeamSupport platform was an instant hit with patients. “It’s extremely easy to use,” Jenna explains. “Visitors instantly know how to use it and can respond to the proactive chat easily.” She notes how important this is for the practice. “For us, this is a huge win, because one of our key goals is to get patients to use the website more. Chat is an easy way to answer our patients’ specific questions in a format they love, and allows our staff to handle more volume much more easily.”

The receptionist team is also able to triage appointment scheduling with greater speed, resulting in increased internal efficiencies, more satisfied patients, and ultimately greater revenue. Each team member can have three active concurrent chats, all scheduling new patient appointments or updating patient credit card information.

Using TeamSupport’s secure, HIPAA-compliant chat platform has further instilled patient trust and gives Potomac Pediatrics a clear competitive edge. With chat, Potomac Pediatrics strengthens their brand presence and gives patients improved access to their vibrant and knowledgeable medical staff in ways previously unattainable. Most importantly, Messaging & Live Chat by TeamSupport allows the practice to connect more easily and more successfully with their patients to drive positive results in patient care and wellbeing.

See It In Action!