The healthcare market in the U.S. is growing rapidly, posing unique opportunities and challenges for healthcare services organisations like RSA Medical. Bridging the gap between patients and health insurance companies, RSA Medical provides medical assessments and management services. Recently, its contact centre reached capacity, and the company needed to expand service levels while keeping costs down.

Instead of building a new physical space for all 400 of its proposed new associates, RSA Medical explored an at-home associate solution. Though initially concerned about privacy and service quality issues, our proven results and deep experience in deploying at-home systems for the healthcare industry quelled all fears.

Working with an Avaya platform, we rolled out a pilot program for 20 associates. Enabling access to calls and applications from almost any desktop client, regardless of physical location, the solution eliminates the need for investment in endpoints, hard phones, and trunking. Associates use their own equipment, allowing for a flexible workforce and significant cost savings. Set up charges are in the hundreds, rather than thousands, of dollars. RSA estimates savings of at least $1,200 per associate, totaling nearly $300,000 in equipment alone for full deployment.

The system connects medical records, insurance information, and personal data, so security is of paramount concern. But all data is centralised and guarded with a sophisticated authentication system that limits associate access, keeping sensitive customer information secure. In addition, the platform’s thin client data is locked and does not persist between sessions for added security. With simple administration, the system places very little strain on RSA Medical’s IT resources.

RSA Medical immediately noticed improvement in sound quality and lack of dropped calls. Associates could provide an excellent customer experience from beginning to end.

The flexible design allows RSA to maintain business continuity. The company can easily switch from physical centres to remote associates to avoid potential interruption of service. Agile scalability provides the capability to ramp up quickly and easily, and RSA can now hire associates from a broader pool of qualified applicants, unhindered by geographical limitations.

The pilot’s initial success has expanded to 50 associates, with plans to jump to 250 remote associates in 2015. The solution has enabled RSA Medical to maximise cost savings, operational efficiencies, security, quality of services, and growth potential.