October 24, 2003

PACE progress: Contact center makes a difference

Patricia Parrelli has been an MGH employee for 25 years — 20 of those years in her current department, Pediatric Surgery. As a part-time secretary in the outpatient practice, she juggles many tasks — fielding hundreds of calls from patients, scheduling surgeries, helping patients check in for their appointments — to name just a few. Her job became a little easier in September when her practice became one of four beta sites of the Patient Administrative Cycle Enhancements (PACE) project.

As part of the beta rollout of the PACE model, the four sites began working with the PACE centralized contact center — called the Registration and Referral Center (RRC). RRC staff help practice staff, such as Parrelli, by handling transferred patient calls to verify insurance and demographic information, as well as processing referrals in advance of patients' visits. The goal of the RRC is to reduce the workload of practice staff and ensure that accurate patient information is available for billing.

"I think PACE and the RRC are great," says Parrelli, who recently was recognized for having one of the highest RRC call transfer rates. "We especially have seen the
success in the number of referrals that have been made through the RRC."

With these four PACE beta sites — Pediatric Surgery, the Orthopaedic Hand Clinic, Cardiac Unit Associates and several sections of Internal Medical Associates — the
RRC staff processed a weekly average of 2,000 patient registrations and 600 referrals, with 97 percent of the calls taken within 16 seconds.

Each practice has an "express phone" conveniently located so that patients on site can contact the RRC directly with any registration or referral issues. Practice staff members also have speed dial capabilities to the RRC for easy access.

The RRC recently made a major transition when the group of 26 employees moved from Ruth Sleeper Hall to a new location (shown above) at 1 Cabot Road in Medford. According to Paul Nealey, director of the RRC, because the new building was previously occupied by another call center, few renovations or changes needed to be made.

"The transition went very smoothly when we moved," he says. "We had a few minor issues, but nothing that couldn't be resolved. The information technology staff did a wonderful job in making sure that the practice staff for the four beta sites did not experience difficulties in transferring patient calls to our staff at the new location."

Twelve more outpatient practices recently began the implementation process — which includes extensive planning and training — for the PACE model, and six to seven more practices will begin the process each month. The goal is to have all practices using the PACE model by July 2004.

For more information about the PACE project, send e-mail to paceproject@partners.org