The healthcare industry has always been backward, relying heavily on personal experience and hard-to-operate and modern paper infrastructure. However, the social distancing requirements brought about by the pandemic have led to a surge in demand for virtual and digital healthcare options. As a typical example, stakeholders in the entire healthcare system were forced to quickly turn to telemedicine, which was previously underutilized as a channel of care.
Since the digital adoption of healthcare is catalyzed by Covid-19, it can be seen as a glimmer of hope. This necessity helps to promote technological innovation to meet new needs and better serve patients.
Transform a highly regulated industry from face-to-face to digital
However, with this evolution comes new challenges and opportunities.
The connectivity that makes telemedicine possible also opens the door to risk. In essence, telemedicine has unique privacy and security risks, and criminals will find these risks tempting. Sensitive patient data is in great demand on the dark web, and the price of each medical record is as high as $1,000. When records are leaked, they are often used to commit crimes, such as illegally obtaining prescription drugs, stealing identity, or submitting false medical claims.
In short, in an industry where data privacy is paramount, providing the convenience and flexibility of telemedicine amid the surge in fraud attacks is no easy task. So how can innovators help healthcare providers cleverly provide frictionless healthcare experiences while protecting themselves and patient information? Considering compliance, this is a daunting task.
Although other industries have adopted identity verification as part of successful digital onboarding, most healthcare providers are navigating digital care for the first time, relying on innovators to pave the way. They learned that verifying patient identity is a critical first step in data protection, and they must strike a healthy balance between providing a seamless patient experience and reducing the risk of fraud.
Remove friction from the digital patient experience
Although telemedicine may benefit patients of all ages, it is not easy for providers to provide a seamless experience. For digital novices (such as older people who may not use technology often), the process must be simple enough, and it must be seamless enough for those who are tech-savvy and want to get the final result quickly.
No matter how comfortable the patient is with technology, removing unnecessary steps in the identity verification process is the beginning of a positive digital experience. In essence, it makes the entry of all patients easier and faster.
Research confirms that identity verification is the number one challenge faced by companies in dealing with fraud. Too much control is implemented and the authentication process becomes too cumbersome. On the other hand, lack of control opens the door to fraud. This dilemma also exists in the healthcare industry, where the risk—protecting private patient data—is even higher.
If most patients can achieve the same results virtually, they will most likely not return to face-to-face care. This makes it essential to ensure that the correct identity verification tools and processes are in place to help providers protect medical records to promote trust and provide quality care in the safest and smoothest way.
Technological advancements provide the best of both worlds: seamless and secure
Through the advancement of today’s technology, telemedicine service providers are overcoming the dual challenges of friction and fraud detection. Compared with basic identity certification and data matching is no longer sufficient, the identity verification technology running in the background can quickly locate, match and verify legitimate patients, reducing friction. Identity verification solutions utilize the intelligent layer of identity attributes, analyze a wide range of identity features and do hard work behind the scenes, so using additional identity verification methods only when necessary allows providers to quickly verify legitimate patients.
In particular, hybrid methods that combine machine learning and human intelligence for identity verification are becoming more and more popular for providing data feedback and decision-making transparency for telemedicine providers. A dedicated team of fraud experts based on machine learning not only simply verifies the patient, but also provides closed-loop verification feedback, explaining why a certain decision was made during the verification process. Any individual attributes that need to be reviewed again will be marked for review. With this data transparency and feedback, the engine will become smarter, catching fraud that may have passed and improving its processes. This is especially helpful for discovering new fraud schemes. After all, healthcare providers can approve more legitimate patients and keep more criminals out.
what In front of
Now and in the future, identity verification is very important for safe and effective telemedicine. As the popularity of digital healthcare continues to increase, innovative entrepreneurs who balance all factors of the “consumer” patient experience will have the highest adoption rate. After adopting this approach, it must be able to provide a simplified, safe and effective experience as a key differentiating factor for suppliers, enabling them to build patient trust and long-term loyalty, while achieving revenue and business growth.
Photo: Khanisorn Chaokla, Getty Images
