If the workers’ comp system is ever truly fixed, it will start with technology that makes billing and payment less of an administrative nightmare.

Catherine Montgomery

That’s why daisyBill exists — and why we’re so impressed by the virtual assistant at California State Compensation Insurance Fund.

SCIF’s automated technology lets providers and their staff check the status of a bill without waiting for a representative, saving countless hours on hold. Provider staff can use the assistant to get claims information, make medical bill inquiries, get the fax number to submit requests for authorization and more.

In an industry characterized by inefficiency and dysfunction, SCIF demonstrates that it’s possible to make things actually work well. Kudos.

The end of waiting on hold?

Any practice employee who’s been forced to investigate an unpaid bill knows how much time and effort is wasted chasing payment up and down a dysfunctional phone tree, only to come away with little more than strong opinions on the claims administrators’ choice of hold music.

For providers billing SCIF, at least, those days are over.

In the course of investigating a recent electronic billing failure in which e-bills for SCIF were erroneously rejected as “duplicates,” daisyBill representatives discovered firsthand how seamlessly SCIF’s virtual assistant manages inquiries.

Clicking the orange chat icon on the SCIF website’s medical provider page opens the virtual assistant. It functions much like a standard customer service chatbot, but one that’s been cleverly programmed with workers’ comp-specific parameters and tied into the data in SCIF’s system.

The need for a human agent has been reduced to almost zero, thanks to the fluency of automation.

The result is that a provider can find whatever is needed to know in a minute or less without languishing on hold until finally breaking down screaming “REPRESENTATIVE!” into the void.  

Game recognizes game. As daisyBill strives to streamline the billing and revenue management aspect of workers’ comp, SCIF is making things work much more smoothly on the payer end.

Make no mistake: SCIF’s efforts ultimately help injured workers by making the fraught choice to treat injured workers much more manageable for providers.

Catherine Montgomery is the co-founder and CEO of daisyBill, a provider of workers' comp end-to-end revenue cycle management software. This post appears with permission.