The best healthcare call center software improves the patient experience AND optimizes internal workflows to keep your practice running smoothly. The wrong one can leave patients, family members, nurses, specialists, doctors, and other team members confused (to put it lightly).
If you’re not sure what to look for beyond HIPAA compliance, you’re in the right place.
Want a Quick Answer? The Best Call Center Software for Healthcare in < 5 Minutes
Nextiva is our favorite call center solution all around. It’s versatile, reliable, and helps healthcare organizations of all sizes deliver cohesive omnichannel support across voice, social, SMS, web chat, and any other channels you may be using.
RingCentral, Dialpad, and Talkdesk are all good options for midsize and growing medical providers.
We typically recommend RingCentral to health insurance companies. Dialpad works best for using AI to boost agent performance. And Talkdesk delivers proactive patient outreach with a fully customizable interface.
Genesys is one of the few healthcare call center tools that’s advanced enough to accommodate complete healthcare networks with tens of thousands of employees.
If you have a single location and fewer than 100 users, Cloudtalk has excellent call routing options at an affordable price. Vonage may work well if you want to build a custom telehealth solution you can embed on your existing website or mobile app.
Our Methodology: How We Review Healthcare Call Center Software
We started with 26 call center platforms (see the full list here). We narrowed it down to 19 right off the bat by cutting all the solutions that weren’t HIPAA compliant, scalable, or able to seamlessly integrate with EHR data.
We removed several more from the list by focusing on ease of migration and implementation.
A few more systems were also eliminated because they were either too rigid, lacked quality support, or were more expensive than similar solutions for no apparent reason.
We were left with the top seven medical call center platforms that check all the boxes.
#1 – Nextiva — The Crazy Egg Favorite
Nextiva is our favorite healthcare call center software because it’s reliable and the most versatile tool on our list. It’s trusted by nearly every type of business in the healthcare industry, including health insurance companies, hospitals, doctors, therapists, and medical practitioners.
Beyond its HIPAA-compliant voice, Nextiva has one of the best omnichannel contact center solutions on the market.
With it, you’ll be able to provide inbound and outbound support via text, email, social messaging, web forms, and more. It’s simple enough to accommodate smaller practices with just one or two locations, yet it’s also powerful enough to support organizations and healthcare networks with hundreds or thousands of agents nationwide.
Nextiva is easy to set up and there’s virtually no learning curve for your call center agents.
Everything is managed through an intuitive and user-friendly desktop or mobile app. If your team prefers using traditional desktop phones and headsets, that’s fine too. There’s a wide range of compatible devices so you can keep using what you already have. Alternatively, you can purchase or rent hardware directly for plug-and-play functionality.
As a cloud-based VoIP solution, Nextiva gives you access to dozens of features you wouldn’t get from a traditional phone system. This includes call recording, video conferencing, an auto attendant, mobile app access, two-way messaging, and even VoIP faxing.
Nextiva also shines for its robust security standards. They leverage seven data centers across the US and Canada with redundancy to protect against hackers, natural disasters, and power outages.
Check out our full Nextiva review to learn more or sign up for a free demo to get started.
#2 – RingCentral — Best For Health Insurance Providers
RingCentral is an industry leader in the call center space.
While it’s a good fit for really any type of healthcare organization, we really like the way it’s set up for midsize health insurance companies with more than 100 agents.
You can configure RingCentral so that all calls from new members are automatically routed to the right department. For your busiest times, like during open enrollment, RingCentral also lets you add new contact center seats with just a few clicks to handle the seasonal rush.
With it, you’ll be able to take a multi-channel approach that goes beyond the phone lines.
For example, you can add a chatbot to your website that provides self-help resources for existing customers. It can guide them to view their statements or pay a bill without having to call you.
The software even has a way for you to segment group plan clients. You can provide VIP service with their own unique routing rules so they can avoid long wait times on your general customer service line.
We love RingCentral’s same-agent call-handling feature, which works really well for the claims process. Rather than members having to re-explain themselves to a new person every time they call, you can automatically route them to the same agent they spoke with previously.
Overall, you get a ton of advanced features that can help optimize your team’s time while also giving customers easy access to everything they need.
On the back end, RingCentral comes with built-in team collaboration tools. Call center agents can message each other in real-time if they need help during a call or jump on a video conference for a quick training session.
Aside from HIPAA compliance, RingCentral is HITRUST CSF certified so you never have to worry.
Read our RingCentral review for more details or get in touch with sales to get started.
#3 – Dialpad — Best For Optimizing Call Center Agent Performance
Dialpad is known for its tech-forward perspective on business communication. It’s one of the few call center solutions on the market that’s found a way to integrate AI into nearly every tool it offers.
For healthcare organizations, this helps put a modern approach to patient communication in a way that’s convenient for them while simultaneously boosting agent productivity.
With Dialpad, you’ll be able to use AI to provide real-time agent assistance. Based on the keywords identified during a call, your agents will have access to triggered pop-ups with guided workflows, relevant speaking points, and best practices for that particular call.
You’re also getting AI recaps of every call that clearly outlines the next steps.
From a management perspective, Dialpad offers real-time sentiment analysis and detailed coaching insights to help you improve agent performance even further. And if necessary, you can always listen in, barge, or take over a call. There’s also a built-in patient CSAT feature that helps you collect feedback on every interaction.
All of these features are accessible through a single app for both internal communication and patient conversations on every channel.
Overall, we recommend Dialpad to healthcare organizations with at least 100 agents. It’s on the pricier end of call center software, but brings a lot of unique capabilities to the table.
Head to our complete Dialpad review to learn more about it or try it free to see if it’s right for you.
#4 – Genesys — Best For Large Healthcare Organizations With Thousands of Agents
While all of the options on our list are scalable, Genesys takes things to the next level. We generally don’t recommend it unless you already have more than 1,000 agents. However, it’s one of the few that can support your growth, no matter how large you get.
As such, it’s a great choice if you want to deploy a new system across your entire healthcare network.
Whether you have a few, dozens, or hundreds of locations, Genesys can handle even the most complex of situations with ease.
Its customizable and innovative sales approach ensures you get everything you need on day one.
The powerful automation engine is versatile and helpful in a lot of ways. For example, it makes it easy to automate routine calls–things like prescription refill reminders and appointment confirmations no longer require a human touch. That paired with speech-enabled IVR, voice bots, chat bots, and automated outbound campaigns, you get everything you need to automate repetitive tasks.
Genesys also has built-in capabilities for telehealth without having to set it all up from scratch.
The platform also seamlessly integrates with EHR platforms and you can even pull data from IoT medical devices to streamline the patient experience even more.
With a complete workforce management and engagement module, supervisors will get everything they need for managing scheduling, forecasting, gamification, coaching, shift trading, and more.
It runs on an ePHI secure cloud environment that’s HIPAA, HITECH, and PCI compliant, so you can rest easy on the compliance side.
No matter the channels you use, Genesys is the ultimate all-in-one communications platform for patients, care teams, an employees alike. As one of the few truly enterprise-level systems built for thousands of users across multiple locations, it’s the go to for large networks looking for a better way.
Check out our Genesys review to learn more about it or talk to sales to get started.
#5 – Talkdesk — Best For Proactive and Personalized Patient Outreach
Talkdesk is a top choice to consider for scaling healthcare companies that want to fully customize the way patient communication is handled.
First and foremost, it has all of the qualities you need in an omnichannel call center system. You’re getting voice, chat, SMS, email, and social messaging bundled into a single interface, making it easy for agents to see every interaction and follow up via the patient’s preferred channels.
But where Talkdesk really shines is through its infinite customizations, which can be really helpful in the healthcare space.
For example, you can integrate all of your patient EHR data and then automate triggers for a text or call based on that information. Maybe it’s been a year since the patient’s last physical or you want to notify them about a policy renewal, confirm an appointment, schedule a follow-up, send closure reminders, or handle prescription refills.
Whatever the case may be, you can use Talkdesk to proactively reach out and reduce the number of inbound calls you get. Not only does this help personalize and improve the patient experience, but it helps reduce the burden on your agents.
Talkdesk natively integrates with major EHRs like Epic, Cerner, and Athena. That paired with the ability to create unique and entirely custom interfaces for different user roles makes everyone’s lives a little easier.
While it can take some getting used to, Talkdesk’s no and low-code tools make it stand out as one of the more customizable solutions on the market.
Read our Talkdesk review for a more in-depth breakdown or request a demo to kickstart the process.
#6 – CloudTalk — Best For Managing Inbound Calls to Smaller Hospitals and Healthcare Facilities
CloudTalk offers a range of advanced call-handling and routing features at an entry-level price point. Just because you’re smaller doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice the patient or agent experience.
By leveraging CloudTalk’s advanced IVR and call flow designer, you can customize menus in a way that points callers to the right floor, office, doctor, or department without requiring human assistance to get there.
You can also set up customized greetings for each phase of the IVR menu. This helps set expectations for callers by letting them know basic information (like office hours, address, and more).
On top of that, you can leverage skills-based routing, VIP queues, caller-based routing, automated call distribution, preferred agent, and smart routing capabilities on most plans. Overall, you get a ton of customizable call routing options without having to pay hundreds of dollars per agent per month.
Aside from call routing, agents will be able to tag calls to keep things organized, comment on interactions, and leverage custom fields to track critical patient data.
Just be aware that beyond the advanced call-routing functions, CloudTalk is pretty basic–you won’t find workforce management features, gamification, an automation engine, or anything like that. It’s fine for a single-location facility with fewer than 100 agents. But beyond that, you’ll likely want to go with something more comprehensive.
Use our CloudTalk review to learn more about its pros, cons, features, and pricing or contact CloudTalk sales to get started.
#7 Vonage — Best For Embedding HIPAA-Compliant Virtual Appointments Into Your Website or App
Vonage is unique compared to the other call center systems on our list. We really only recommend Vonage if you want to create a custom telehealth solution for virtual care.
With Vonage’s HIPAA compliant API, you can embed voice, messaging, and video into your existing website or mobile app. It’s perfect for medical practices and healthcare organizations that want to modernize patient communication and go virtual for visits that don’t require an in-person assessment.
It can be used for mental health services, PCP checkups, outpatient follow-ups, nurses lines, or anything else you’d like.
The cool part about Vonage is that you can set it up to accommodate scheduled appointments or even ad-hoc calls. Both patients and providers can connect without either having to leave the comfort of their own homes.
But just to be clear, you’ll have to do a lot of the development legwork yourself and this is the only use case where we recommend Vonage. If you’re just looking for a more traditional, out-of-the-box call center solution, we suggest looking elsewhere.
Refer to our Vonage review for more information or try Vonage’s communications APIs for free to see if its right for you.
Migrating Your Healthcare Call Center
Finding a call center solution that fits your needs is just the first step. Before you can proceed, you need to make sure you can seamlessly migrate to the new system with minimal effort.
For the most part, you’ll want the new provider to handle this on your behalf to ensure you don’t have a major outage. They may even handle the migration in different stages. Depending on your current setup, the migration can take a few days to even a few months if you’re moving from an on-premise or hybrid deployment.
Most providers will tell you not to cancel your current plan or on-premise servers until the migration is done. As such, you’ll have some overlap where you’ll have to pay for both solutions.
Don’t Forget About Equipment
Most modern healthcare call centers are cloud-based and use softphone technology, making it possible to handle calls from mobile, desktop, and web apps.
However, your agents still may prefer traditional desk phones, headsets, or a combination of the two.
Equipment can be a big expense to take into consideration, especially if you have a large team. Rather than having to re-purchase everything, you may be able to use a converter to turn your existing equipment into a VoIP-enabled device. Another option is purchasing second-hand equipment or renting hardware from your provider.
Automate What You Can (Within Reason)
We’re not advocates of replacing call center agents with robots. However, you can definitely use AI and automation to get more from your team, boost their productivity, and eliminate certain types of live calls.
Automating things like appointment reminders or prescription refills via text or pre-recorded messages can save thousands of hours that would otherwise need to be handled by a real person.
The same goes for inbound inquiries. If a patient or member is just calling to pay a bill, they should be able to do so without speaking to an agent. Features like IVR payments, self-service options, automated calls, pre-recorded messages, and chat or voice bots can be a huge help.
However, don’t set out to automate with the intention of replacing your agents. Instead, think of it as a way to optimize the patient experience without overburdening your resources.
Look Beyond HIPAA Compliance
Don’t assume that a call center solution is good for you just because it’s HIPAA compliant.
While that’s obviously a requirement, you need to look at the way they handle data security from other angles.
If you’re planning to take payments over the phone, via text, or through web-based chat, then your contact center system must also be PCI compliant.
Beyond compliance, make sure the provider has multiple data centers and uses redundancy to reduce the chances of downtime or data loss. This is particularly important if you’re integrating EHR systems and other sensitive patient data. Disaster recovery processes are also critical, especially for large businesses. While HIPAA is often the first thing you’ll look at, it’s not the only consideration.
Small Practices Don’t Need Full-Blown Call Center Software
You don’t need call center software if you’re running a small single-location practice.
We’re referring to dentists, chiropractors, physical therapists, primary care physicians, specialists, and anyone else who’s running just one or a few offices.
Call center software is designed to support a high volume of inbound or outbound calls. But that’s not necessary if you’re just fielding incoming calls from patients to schedule appointments, calling outbound to healthcare providers, and sending appointment reminders a few times a day.
You may be able to save a ton of money and use a standard VoIP system.
Nextiva and RingCentral work really well for this–Nextiva’s simpler but easier to use whereas RingCentral includes a range of more advanced capabilities but costs more and has a steeper learning curve.
