Consider a Career in Healthcare Customer Service

According to a recent Med City News article about healthcare jobs with high-growth potential, hospitals and healthcare systems are looking to customer–service representatives to help promote their services. The article notes, “Hospitals are trending toward customer-service satisfaction, conducting surveys and becoming more attentive to patients as customers. Therefore, expect to see this field in healthcare grow 52 percent (over the next few years).”

In the past, healthcare customer-service reps were the people who answered patients’ billing questions and fielded problems with pharmaceutical or insurance companies. Now they are just as apt to be designing and analyzing customer surveys or developing strategies for boosting use of a hospital’s new birthing center.

“Customers are getting more and more independent and more and more knowledgeable all the time. As healthcare professionals, we owe them our respect,” comments Sue Gustafson, longtime public-relations consultant and manager. “One way we show that respect is by designating people to find out exactly how we can serve our customers better. Hospitals have always done surveys, but too often they’ve been under the control of the medical/scientific side of the house. They’ve been data driven, not customer centered. It’s great to see that hospitals are paying more attention to what customers think and need.”

Making it social

Scripps Health is one healthcare system that’s taking customer service seriously. In fact, the organization has even created a new position, electronic customer–service representative, tasked with reaching out to patients through social media and responding to online reviews. Scripps’ director of web technology Marc Needham commented on the importance of the position saying, “Unaddressed complaints fester and lead to online reputation rot.”

Various routes to becoming a customer-service rep

Most often, healthcare customer–service reps work under the umbrella of the marketing department. So a good place to start is with a degree in healthcare marketing/administration. One college that offers an associate’s degree in healthcare administration, with a concentration in healthcare customer service, is LA College in Los Angeles. But a healthcare marketing/administration degree isn’t the only route to a customer–service job. CS reps sometimes cut their teeth working as liaisons with pharmaceutical or insurance companies or medical staffs, then move on to more patient-centered interactions. And they can even come from the medical side of the house.

“Someone with a nursing background might make a great CS rep. Nurses understand medical and patient-care issues and are used to working to make their patients happy. But the key thing, whether you’re a nurse or marketing professional, is to care about what your customers want and be curious enough to learn about the whole healthcare process,” says Gustafson.