Of all industries, medical care requires a constantly high attention to detail, efficiency, accuracy, and effectiveness. That’s why back-office hospital and clinic staff must be trained thoroughly and regularly on principles, policies, procedures and techniques. Frontline personnel cannot interact effectively with patients if back-office systems and trainings fall short. Here are several key areas where a hospital back office needs professional training.

Patient Registration

The regulations revolving around patient registration are involved and sometimes difficult to comprehend. On top of that, staff is tasked with obtaining payer benefit information, but the process is awkward and it is challenging to get all the information needed. With proper training, patient registration is smoother and errors are reduced. Workers have a better understanding of how their performance affects bottom-line revenue, and that fewer mistakes means better service and more income.

Bill Collection

One of the difficulties in operating a hospital or medical clinic is the ongoing challenge of collections. The situation is exacerbated in areas of the country with low-income residents that may find it a challenge to pay medical bills. Back-office staff with proper training can improve collections in all areas of service, including the outpatient area and emergency room, and help the organization reach KPIs.

Cost-Effective Training

Even if hospitals recognize the need for better training, it’s difficult to call upon managers to conduct research, build presentations and deliver training to office staff. In addition, turnover requires the process to take place all over again. Quality training programs accessed online and available at any time are convenient for new employees and existing workers alike. Videos, text, quizzes, interactive elements and reference libraries reduce the time needed to train fresh staff and update training for current staff.

Improve Training Methods

Hospital leaders and managers generally lack the background and experience to be effective trainers. Often, they use familiar tools like PowerPoint and Microsoft Word to prepare materials. These methods are hard to scale, and the lack of effective instructional design makes it difficult for learners to follow the training. Professional e-learning and online training systems systemize teaching, freeing managers up to focus on their core responsibilities and allow learners to get better training at the same time. For example, Park Ridge Health in North Carolina was able to increase point-of-sale collections by 30 percent with standardized training.

Scale Internal Education

Ad-hoc training methods leave a lot to be desired in back-office operations, but may be sufficient when organizations are small and training needs are modest. However, once a hospital or healthcare organization begins growing at a rapid clip, internal training must be standardized and accessible to many learners. The training must be available anywhere there is an Internet connection, and ready to be implemented any time of day. Requisite course material for a wide variety of training demands should be made available to all interested learners, with the self-paced options for specific applications. Modern learning management systems meet these criteria, allowing rapidly growing organizations to provide the same training material to an expanding number of employees while retaining quality, effectiveness, agility, and efficiency.

Patients of all ages rely on efficient, knowledgeable back-office staff to provide the structure and smooth operations necessary for them to get necessary healthcare. The informal, haphazard training methods of the past should be replaced with streamlined, organized, entertaining and interesting teaching methods of today.

With more than 4 million users, Litmos is one of the world’s most popular learning management systems. Many hospitals train employees using the more than 750 pre-packaged courses Litmos offers. Leverage the power of next-generation learning management systems, and help your back-office staff improve their skills and provide high-level service for each patient.