Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ll know AI chatbots are all the rave these days, and for a number of reasons:  

In most industries it’s quite simple to create and deploy a chatbot, but for healthcare and pharmacies, things can get a little tricky. You’re dealing with sensitive patient information, diagnosis, prescriptions, and medical advice, which can all be detrimental if the chatbot gets something wrong.  

So, how do healthcare centers and pharmacies incorporate AI chatbots without jeopardizing patient information and care? In this blog we’ll walk you through healthcare use cases you can start implementing with an AI chatbot without risking your reputation.  

In general, people have grown accustomed to using chatbots for a variety of reasons, including chatting with businesses. The healthcare industry is no different. In fact, 52% of patients in the USA acquire their healthcare data through chatbots.   

But chatbots are only as intelligent as we train them to be, and so “teaching” your chatbot how to interact with patients is critical. Here’s what our Chief Business Officer, Ivan Ostojić had to say about new AI chatbots for healthcare: 

People want speed, convenience, and reliability from their healthcare providers, and chatbots, when developed well, can help alleviate a lot of the strain healthcare centers and pharmacies experience daily. 

If you aren’t already using a chatbot for appointment management, then it’s almost certain your phone lines are constantly ringing and busy. With an AI chatbot, patients can send a message to your clinic, asking to book, reschedule, or cancel appointments without the hassle of waiting on hold for long periods of time. Using an AI chatbot can make the entire experience more personal and give them the impression they are speaking with a human. 

AI chatbots can help onboard patients with ease. Send educational videos over chat so patients can watch and review when it’s convenient for them. The chatbot can answer all FAQs associated with onboarding at your clinic and you can create conversation flows to guide them through the onboarding process. 

An AI chatbot can quickly help patients find the nearest clinic, pharmacy, or healthcare center based on their particular needs. The chatbot can also be trained to offer useful details such as operating hours, contact information, and user reviews to help patients make an informed decision. 

Life is busy, and remembering to refill prescriptions, take medication, or even stay up to date with vaccinations can sometimes slip people’s minds. With an AI chatbot, you can set up messages to be sent to patients with a personalized reminder. They can interact with the bot if they have more questions like their dosage, if they need a follow-up appointment, or if they have been experiencing any side effects that should be addressed.

Before a diagnostic appointment or testing, patients often need to prepare in advance. Use an AI chatbot to send automated messages, videos, images, and advice to patients in preparation for their appointment. The chatbot can easily converse with patients and answer any important questions they have at any time of day. The chatbot can also help remind patients of certain criteria to follow such as when to start fasting or how much water to drink before their appointment. 

Your chatbot can schedule and set up calls with a tele-health professional. Use video or voice to transfer patients to speak directly with a healthcare professional. An AI chatbot is also trained to understand when it can no longer assist a patient, so it can easily transfer patients to speak with a representative or healthcare professional and avoid any unpleasant experiences. 

Healthcare insurance claims are complicated, stressful, and not something patients want to deal with, especially if they are in the middle of a health crisis. Using an AI chatbot for health insurance claims can help alleviate the stress of submitting a claim and improve the overall satisfaction of patients with your clinic. Answer questions about patient coverage and train the AI chatbot to navigate personal insurance plans to help patients understand what medical services are available to them.  

Your AI chatbot can also guide patients through the claim process. It’s inevitable that questions will arise, and you can help them submit their claims in a step-by-step process with a chatbot or even remind them to complete their claim with personalized reminders. 

After any diagnosis, patients often turn to the internet for advice and education on their disease – not ideal. An AI chatbot can immediately start interacting with patients, providing educational content, tips, remedies and more to help patients learn more about their diagnosis and how to manage it. 

Not everyone has time to give you feedback on their experience with your healthcare center but answering a few short questions with an AI chatbot does make the entire processes easier and provides you with more data on how to improve experiences. After an appointment, send a follow up message checking up on your patient. Train your chatbot to be conversational and collect feedback in a casual and stress-free way. 

Set up messaging flows via your healthcare chatbot to help patients better manage their illnesses. For example, healthcare providers can create message flows for patients who are preparing for gastric bypass surgery to help them stay accountable on the diet and exercise prescribed by their doctor.

Patients sometimes need fast access to their medical records. Instead of waiting on hold for a healthcare call center and waiting even longer for an email to come through with their records, train your AI chatbot to manage this kind of query. You can speed up time to resolution, achieve higher satisfaction rates and ensure your call lines are free for urgent issues.  

Use your AI chatbot to send informal messages to patients. Anything from birthday wishes, event invitations, welcome messages, and more. Sending informational messages can help patients feel valued and important to your healthcare business.  

Launching an informative campaign can help raise awareness of illnesses and how to treat certain diseases. Before flu season, launch a campaign to help patients prevent colds and flu, send out campaigns on heart attacks in women, strokes, or how to check for breast lumps. These campaigns can be sent to relevant audiences that will find them useful and can help patients become more aware and proactive about their health.  

If patients have started filling out an intake form or pre-appointment form on your website but did not complete it, send them a reminder with a chatbot. Better yet, ask them the questions you need answered through a conversation with your AI chatbot. This allows for a more relaxed and conversational approach to providing critical information for their file with your healthcare center or pharmacy.  

Megi Health Platform built their very own healthcare chatbot from scratch using our chatbot building platform Answers. The chatbot helps guide patients through their entire healthcare journey – all over WhatsApp.  

AI chatbots for healthcare are not going anywhere. In fact, they are sure to take over as a key tool in helping healthcare centers and pharmacies streamline processes and alleviate the workload on staff.  

With that being said, we could end up seeing AI chatbots helping with diagnosing illnesses or prescribing medication. But this is not a simple task. We would first have to master how to ethically train chatbots to interact with patients about sensitive information and provide the best possible medical services without human intervention.  

It is close to impossible that AI chatbots could ever replace doctors or nurses, but it could be the right tool that helps with pre-appointment screening, post-appointment follow-ups, or symptom tracking for patients with chronic illnesses.  

Perfecting the use cases mentioned above would provide patients with comfortable, secure, and reliable conversations with their healthcare providers.  

But where do you start?

Infobip can help you jump start your conversational patient journeys using AI technology tools. Get an inside look at how to digitalize and streamline your processes while creating ethical and safe conversational journeys on any channel for your patients.