Enrollment coordinator: the secret weapon for increasing your conversion rate

In the digital age we’re in, building a human relationship with a patient is probably the most important thing a care organization can do. Chatbots might be cool, but a human connection is still cooler.

 One way to build this human connection is by hiring an enrollment coordinator like Hannah Stein from Ophelia, and it’s also a great way to drastically increase your conversion rate. 

// Please note that this blog is my (Rik) personal opinion and does not necessarily reflect the vision of Hannah or Ophelia.  //

What is an enrollment coordinator? 

// The below definition is based on my conversation with Hannah and other industry leaders in the space //

Let me explain the role of an enrollment coordinator with a simple example. Imagine  a patient sends a message to your company’s Facebook account asking “What is it that you do exactly?”, the following will happen:

Without an enrollment coordinator: 

• Patient gets an automated reply from a chatbot that they can find more information on www.insertname.com/information

• Patient needs to fill in an “eligible check” questionnaire via www.insertname.com/onboarding

• If the patient did not convert after 24h, an automatic reminder will be sent

• If, after 5 days, the patient still did not convert another reminder is send

• A final message is sent to the patient 3 days later

In some cases someone from the operation team calls the patient after reminder two, but even by adding this step to the process your conversion rate is probably between 20 to 40%. 

So it’s clear that a low conversion rate is a symptom of a care process that has not been optimized. Let me show you how an enrollment coordinator can bump things up.

With an enrollment coordinator:

• Enrollment coordinator answers the question right away through text, email or Facebook chat

• The patient schedules a call with an enrollment coordinator for more information (visit can be on the same day)

• During this call, the enrollment coordinator answers all the questions the patient has, explains the program and schedules the intake appointment with the clinician if the patient wants to pursue 

• If the patient has any additional questions or challenges before the intake appointment, the patient can easily reach out to the enrollment coordinator via text, email or phone (e.g. reschedule, questions about Zoom, etc)

Enrollment coordinators are the patient’s first point of contact. They exist to build a first human relationship with the patient, to waive their concerns and build trust. 

In an industry like healthcare, where trust is low, an enrollment coordinator is crucial to make sure the patient feels comfortable paying for your services. Additionally, it’s also a way to bump your onboarding conversion rate significantly.

“In healthcare there is so much automation that we tend to forget the value in speaking to a person.  It may not be the most cost-effective, but you will not believe how many patients I’ve talked to who are like, ‘Oh my gosh, you're a real person”

- Hannah Stein, Enrollment Coordinator at Ophelia 

At Ophelia, an enrollment coordinator has three shifts: 

• Communication: 

  • Async: go through the inbox and answer questions from prospective patients (e.g. people asking more information about Ophelia, helping patients set up Zoom…)

  • Sync (aka enrollment calls): calls with patients to answer questions about the program (aka the enrollment)

• Verifying eligibility for insurance

The enrollment team works with patients up until their clinical intake. They answer patients' questions, and get a meeting booked with a clinician but once that’s done care coordination will take over. 

As an early-stage startup, you won’t be able to hire a full-time enrollment coordinator, but you can push these responsibilities to e.g. the operations team or even the CEO (the amount of information you can get out of one “enrollment call” is significant). 

Org chart

There are multiple ways of structuring the “enrollment” team, here is one example:

The responsibilities each team has could be based on:

• Task (e.g. a team focused on async communication, another focused on the calls)

• States (e.g. team 1 is responsible for Texas, California and Maryland)

• Disease (only applicable if you have different verticals, but team 1 could answer all questions for your diabetes program and team 2 for your hypertension program)

I’m honestly not sure what would be best, so if you have any experience please reach out to me (rik@awellhealth.com).

FAQ

Q: Should you charge patients for this check-in with an enrollment coordinator?
A: I would make it free to lower friction.

Q: Are enrollment coordinators medical providers?
A: No, that’s not needed. 

Q: Can you build some form of automation in the onboarding process?

A: Of course.  I’m convinced you should automate as many low-value add activities in your care delivery process. In Ophelia’s case, they do send automated text messages to the patient prior to the appointment. It’s a crucial mechanic to prevent ClinOps debt. Something else you can do is ask a handful (!) of questions on your website (e.g. age, state, weight…) to do a first eligibility check before calling the patient. 

Q: How long does an enrollment call take? 

A: Depends on the patient's questions. Some calls last only four minutes, other calls are 20 minutes.

Q: How do you train enrollment coordinators?
A: A combination of asynchronous modules on e.g. HIPAA, security and main principles and shadowing in real-time (aka getting on a Zoom with another enrollment coordinator and following literally everything they do).  

Final thoughts

In the war of point solutions we’re currently in, a great patient experience is the biggest unique selling proposition you can have. This patient experience is, as in marketing, literally every interaction they have with your organization. 

So when a patient reaches out the chances are high they did their diligence (and probably better than most VCs do diligence) and want to speak to an actual human instead of a robot. If you, as an organization, value this human-to-human relationship it’s time to drop your chatbot and start hiring people like Hannah.  

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Big thanks to Hannah Stein & the Ophelia team for their insights and feedback. 

If you don’t know what they do: Ophelia is a comprehensive, virtual clinic that provides medication for opioid use disorder (MOUD) and treatment for psychiatric comorbidities. It’s their mission to make high-quality, evidence-based MOUD care affordable and accessible to all.

You can read more about what they do on their website or text them at (215) 585 2144.