According to Shan Fowler, senior director of product strategy at Benefitfocus, automation is not replacing the human touch, but the convenience of technology and mobile accessibility is requiring businesses offer electronic services on top of the face-to-face interactions.
“When I think anecdotally, I think about banks and how if I need cash I will go to an ATM, but these days at most places you can pay with Apple Pay or I can upload checks via mobile apps and I chuckle to myself when I see a screen on the ATM pop and it says, ‘need a bank teller,’ because I haven’t needed to see a teller in years,” Fowler says. “How this applies to the healthcare industry is, if you have a digital enrollment platform you can provide a great deal of information up front and if you’re a repeat customer you don’t even need to enter that much information because it is already on file and that streamlines the process.”
