Health International of Scottsdale, Arizona operates a 24-hour health call center. URAC accreditation helps accomplish this goal. Health call centers are an excellent source of health information and offer immediate assistance. The standards protect the confidentiality of consumer information and ensure that only qualified health professionals provide clinical information and opinions. The standards also establish minimum requirements for how long the call center may keep a patient on hold before connecting the patient with its representative.
Call centers are an increasingly popular mechanism for providing valuable information to patients.
These standards provide an important way for consumers and health care purchasers to find out which call centers have decided to adhere to national quality standards. BCC also predicted a growth rate for telemedicine of 35 percent per year over the next five years. Many health plans and other health benefit programs contract with call centers to serve as an important source of information for patients, especially when the patient's primary care physician or members of the health plan staff are unavailable. In many episodes of care, the call center may be the patient's first point of contact. Call centers provide an important service to patients, but only if they perform their functions thoughtfully and responsibly.