Call center experience could cost customers
A recent study showed that 61 percent of customers who have a bad experience with a call center of an insurance company are at risk of defecting to another company. The study also showed that more than a fifth of all callers hang up without getting their problem resolved. Results of the study, by the CFI Group, were used to calculate a Call Center Satisfaction Index, based on the University of Michigan’s American Customer Satisfaction Index, or ACSI. On a 100-point scale, satisfaction with insurance call centers was rated as 68, the second lowest of six industries analyzed by the Ann Arbor, Mich.-based CFI Group. The inability to resolve calls outstripped offshoring as the top call center issue, the firm’s analysis found.
Business Group on Health selects data repository
The Washington-based National Business Group on Health has selected the University of Michigan’s Health Management Research Center as the central repository for its EMPAQ data. The business group’s data is the universal set of standardized metrics that enables employers to measure the performance and effectiveness of their health and productivity programs. The university-based program also will serve as the business group’s research partner to collect, analyze and summarize aggregated data.
Ala. gets OK on personal assistance services
Alabama is the first state in the nation to receive federal approval to allow self-directed personal assistance services as a feature of its Medicaid plan. The approval, granted by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, eliminates the need for repeated requests to conduct demonstration programs, which have time limitations, or waivers. The move gives beneficiaries more control over the care they receive, HHS officials said.
QIOs rarely use severe sanctions for problems
A study by the Inspector General for the Department of Health and Human Services has found that Quality Improvement Organizations recommend either no action or the least severe action when they identify quality concerns. The study found that QIOs completed full quality-of-care reviews on 34,768 cases between Feb. 1, 2003 and Jan. 31, 2006. They confirmed one or more quality concerns in 6,439 cases, or 19 percent. QIOs assigned the two least serious classifications to more than 80 percent of those cases.