Patient Access Opportunity Review

Unlocking $24.5M in Annual Impact

A preliminary view of UAB Medicine’s access journey points highlights recoverable revenue in no-show reduction, collections uplift, referral conversion, and avoidable call volume — the levers with the most direct impact on care continuity.

Modeled Annual Opportunity

$14.3M

Recovered Appointments through No Shows and Cancellation Backfill

$2.7M

Collections Uplift Patient Responsibility

$2.4M

Contact Center Deflection

$5.2M

Referral Conversion

Total Annual Impact
UAB Medicine

$24.5M

Industry Average

No-show rate

7%

7% is a common no-show baseline rate, but average rates vary widely depending on the type of facility, the patient demographic, and the medical specialty.1

Average identity verification time

45 sec

Patients spend an average of 45 seconds verifying identity at the start of a phone interaction.2

Avoidable contact center calls

4.4 min

Average hold time runs about 4.4 minutes—more than 5x the 50-second benchmark set by HFMA. And a meaningful share of that volume is avoidable.3

30-day readmission rate

15–20%

15–20% of patients are readmitted within 30 days—directly linked to inadequate post-discharge follow-up.4

Post-service collection rate

48%

Post-care patient collections have fallen below 50% as self-pay and high-deductible balances climb.5

1. MGMA (Medical Group Management Association), 2025

2. Communication Business Avenue, Inc., 2024

3. Physicians Angels, 2025

4. CMS HRRP / HFMA, 2023

5. Kodiak Solutions, 2024

Where Patients Are Experiencing Friction

No-show reduction

Single-specialty no-show rates average 5–7% overall, but peer-reviewed research shows academic medical center clinics often run closer to 20%, driven by referral complexity, multi-site scheduling, and safety-net patient mix.

Identity verification

Identity verification adds 45 seconds of friction per call, on average—a delay that multiplies across the millions of annual inbound contacts at a large academic health system.

Voice journey fragmentation

Fragmented legacy phone systems cause long hold times, unnecessary transfers, and lost context—whether patients call about H.R. 1 requirements, billing, or scheduling—straining already-stretched access teams.

Post-discharge follow-up

15–20% of patients are readmitted within 30 days, directly linked to inadequate post-discharge follow-up. Proactive outreach can help close these care-continuity gaps.

Post-service collections

Without automated, personalized outreach, systems default to generic mailed statements and manual calls—letting accounts age into collections before real engagement happens.

Where Patients Are Experiencing Friction

Recovered appointment capacity

Every point of no-show reduction reclaims thousands of appointment slots a year—protecting referral revenue, specialist access, and the patient-access metrics that boards and CMS track.

Faster identity verification

Seconds saved per contact compound to thousands of staff-hours reclaimed annually, freeing the right care resources to focus on complex, high-acuity patient needs rather than routine authentication.

Reduced avoidable call volume

More issues resolved in a patient's preferred language through self-service and proactive outreach—freeing capacity for the complex, clinical, and financial conversations that genuinely require a live person.

Stronger post-discharge continuity

Fewer follow-up gaps after patients leave care, supporting readmission-penalty exposure and value-based contract performance.

Improved post-service collection rates

Robust, personalized outreach around patient financial conversations reduces bad debt and days in A/R, giving finance leadership more predictable cash flow.

Unlock $24.5M in Annual Impact

Addressing key patient access friction points will capture more revenue, retain more patients, and improve operational performance. Explore your opportunity with the ROI calculator below.

Use Cases (select all that apply)

Increase Revenue

Improve Operational Efficiency

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WestCX Orchestrate Works Across the Entire Care Journey—So No Patient Gets Left Behind


Delivering consistent, personalized communication across the full care journey isn’t something teams can manage manually. WestCX Orchestrate handles it automatically—across channels and around the clock. Its intelligence layer listens to existing systems, understands intent, and guides the next best action in real time, based on exactly where someone is in their journey.