Outside Innovation

Anthem Hack: Will It Slow the Spread of Patient Portals?

Why Medical Records Are Tempting Targets for Cyber Crooks

The information that is collected and stored by healthcare providers and by health insurance companies includes incrdibly detailed information about our lives. In the U.S., insured patients are identified by social security numbers and birthdates, as well as full names. Our records include our current phone numbers, mailing addresses, physical addresses, email addresses, and all the same contact information for our next of kin and our closest friends and family members. This information also includes specifics about our current employer and how long we have been employed and on that employer’s insurance plan. These records also include our insurance member IDs. All of this information is sufficient for a crook to steal someone’s identity, to gain access to their accounts, to apply for and gain credit using our names, to begin piling up bills, to damage credit ratings, and to make our lives hell. Identity theft is much more difficult, costly, and time-consuming to combat than credit card fraud or than having a single bank account compromised.

This wealth of personal information also makes it incredibly easy for crooks impersonating healthcare services providers to bill insurers, including large federal payers, for medical and ancillary services (transportation, therapy, medical appliances) that were probably never provided, collecting millions of dollars in reimbursement before they’re ever found out. Medicare and Medicaid fraud is already a multi-billion criminal enterprise. The Economist called it “the $272 billion swindle” in May, 2014:

What Matters Most in Customer Self-Service?

Both consumer and business customers rely heavily on Web self-service channels when they have a problem. Recent surveys of customers engaged in self-service activities have surfaced some interesting results.

Here are a few of the highlights:

• Many customers have more than 11 different logins and passwords.
• Many customers change these frequently.
• Yet many other customers use the same ones for all their accounts.
• Customers will spend between 10 and 30 minutes trying to solve a problem or answer a question using self-service tools before they’ll call a person for help.
• Many customer service emails are not answered at all or take days to get an answer.
• 10% of Twitter queries are answered within an hour.
• Two-thirds of U.S. consumers have made a complaint in the last 3 years. Most people make six complaints per year and spend over an hour resolving each one.
• Two-thirds of U.S. consumers have had to repeat their “stories” over and over again when trying to solve a problem with customer service via the phone.

What’s the bottom line? Customers want to use self-service tools. Don’t make them log in to use them. Provide virtual assistants and other streamlined tools to help customers solve their problems. Don’t EVER ask a customer to repeat his/her story!

Read Mitch Kramer’s summary of recent customer service surveys:

Patterns from Customer Service Suppliers’ VOC
Customer Survey Results from KANA and Nuance about Customer Service Experiences
By Mitch Kramer, Senior Consultant, Patricia Seybold Group, March 14, 2014

 

Learn from Alaska Airlines’ Director of Customer Innovation

By Ronni Marshak

In her interview with Curtis Kopf, Managing Director, AlaskaAir.com and Customer Innovation, Patty Seybold learned how the commitment to providing an exceptional customer experience resulted in the airline’s pioneering work in customer-facing innovation. It surprised me to learn that Alaska Air Group (Alaska and Horizon Airlines) is the seventh largest airline in the U.S. (Here, on the East Coast, Alaska Air seems very niche and exotic). Further, the airline was the first to book flights and sell tickets via the Internet, the first to offer Web check-in, the first to use onboard POS devices to accept debit and credit cards in the air, among other innovations! Who knew?

Curtis Kopf heads up Alaska Airlines’ digital, mobile, and ecommerce team. Patty is a fan of his combination of responsibilities: “It’s hard to separate e-commerce and online self-service from mobile tools and your mobile-friendly web site. So it also makes sense to combine mobile and e-commerce/online under one role. But what’s different and particularly interesting to me about Curtis Kopf’s role at Alaska Airlines is his involvement in the company’s initiatives to use technology to make it easy for customers to get things done when they’re interacting with Alaska Airlines and its personnel at the airport and/or on the plane.”

How could your organization benefit from an explicit executive focus on customer innovation? Maybe it’s time to hire or promote a Director/VP of Customer Innovation in your company.

~ Ronni

Managing Customer Innovation at Alaska Airlines
Alaska Airlines Combines Customer Innovation with E-Commerce & Mobile
By Patricia B. Seybold, CEO and Senior Consultant, Patricia Seybold Group, May 31, 2012