How Healthcare Organizations Use AI to Transform Patient Access and Revenue Cycle Management with Patty Hayward Talkdesk TRANSCRIPT
Release Date: 05/05/2026
How Healthcare Organizations Use AI to Transform Patient Access and Revenue Cycle Management with Patty Hayward Talkdesk TRANSCRIPT
Empowered Patient Podcast
Patty Hayward, General Manager of healthcare and life sciences at Talkdesk, describes how a hybrid model of humans and AI is reshaping healthcare contact centers. Patient access and revenue cycle management are the primary, interconnected challenges for these centers, and modern large-language AI is being used to handle complex scheduling logic. Data analytics helps identify patterns in patient inquiries, predict demand peaks, and move care from reactive to proactive. The expectation is that AI agents will guide patients, becoming a normal and accepted part of healthcare. Patty explains, "I...
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How Healthcare Organizations Use AI to Transform Patient Access and Revenue Cycle Management with Patty Hayward Talkdesk
Empowered Patient Podcast
Patty Hayward, General Manager of healthcare and life sciences at Talkdesk, describes how a hybrid model of humans and AI is reshaping healthcare contact centers. Patient access and revenue cycle management are the primary, interconnected challenges for these centers, and modern large-language AI is being used to handle complex scheduling logic. Data analytics helps identify patterns in patient inquiries, predict demand peaks, and move care from reactive to proactive. The expectation is that AI agents will guide patients, becoming a normal and accepted part of healthcare. Patty explains, "I...
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Virtual Reality Therapy for Lazy Eye More Effective Than Traditional Patching with Scott Xiao Luminopia TRANSCRIPT
Empowered Patient Podcast
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info_outline
Virtual Reality Therapy for Lazy Eye More Effective Than Traditional Patching with Scott Xiao Luminopia
Empowered Patient Podcast
Scott Xiao, Co-Founder and CEO of Luminopia, is developing a novel, FDA -cleared VR-based treatment for neurovisual disorders with a primary focus on amblyopia, lazy eye, in children aged 4- 12 years old. This approach uses popular TV shows to create an engaging, effective therapy that trains the eyes to work together and is designed as a replacement for traditional eye patching. Clinical data indicate that the vision improvements from this therapy are durable and that the VR approach is well-received by children and their parents. Scott explains, "We are pioneering a new class of...
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Empowered Patient Podcast
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Providing Transparency in Prescription Drug Pricing with Joseph Kleiman Buzz Health
Empowered Patient Podcast
Joseph Kleiman, President of Buzz Health, is working to improve price transparency and affordability of prescription drugs. He states that providing price transparency as early as possible in the prescription process is critical for prescribers, patients, and health plans to make better, more cost-effective decisions. To achieve true transparency, all parties in the ecosystem must cooperate and share data, moving beyond pricing visibility to fully integrate systems and use real-time information to improve patient adherence and lower costs. Joseph explains, "Buzz Health really focuses on...
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Advanced Precision Diagnostics Accelerate Cancer Mutation Analysis with Dr. Bill Kerr Avalon Healthcare Solutions
Empowered Patient Podcast
Dr. Bill Kerr, Co-Founder and CEO of Avalon Healthcare Solutions, highlights the critical role of advanced precision diagnostics and how these tools are driving true precision medicine, where therapies are targeted to specific genetic mutations. There have been significant innovations, such as less invasive liquid biopsies and the application of AI to interpret medical images and complex lab results, which provide faster analysis and make it easier to monitor disease over time. The future of diagnostics includes more routine tests and imaging to enable earlier interventions and more...
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Evolution of Healthcare IT Management with Zack Tisch and Molly Kalinowski Pivot Point Consulting TRANSCRIPT
Empowered Patient Podcast
Zack Tisch, Partner of Portfolio Services, and Molly Kalinowski, Vice President of Managed Services at Pivot Point Consulting, describe how the role of IT in healthcare has evolved from a reactive, support function to a central strategic component of business. As AI becomes more important, healthcare systems are navigating a challenging environment and recognizing the need for managed services partners to handle day-to-day operations so they can better focus on big-picture goals and priorities. Zack and Molly emphasize the need to drive incremental changes to streamline provider data capture...
info_outline
Evolution of Healthcare IT Management with Zack Tisch and Molly Kalinowski Pivot Point Consulting
Empowered Patient Podcast
Zack Tisch, Partner of Portfolio Services, and Molly Kalinowski, Vice President of Managed Services at Pivot Point Consulting, describe how the role of IT in healthcare has evolved from a reactive, support function to a central strategic component of business. As AI becomes more important, healthcare systems are navigating a challenging environment and recognizing the need for managed services partners to handle day-to-day operations so they can better focus on big-picture goals and priorities. Zack and Molly emphasize the need to drive incremental changes to streamline provider data capture...
info_outlinePatty Hayward, General Manager of healthcare and life sciences at Talkdesk, describes how a hybrid model of humans and AI is reshaping healthcare contact centers. Patient access and revenue cycle management are the primary, interconnected challenges for these centers, and modern large-language AI is being used to handle complex scheduling logic. Data analytics helps identify patterns in patient inquiries, predict demand peaks, and move care from reactive to proactive. The expectation is that AI agents will guide patients, becoming a normal and accepted part of healthcare.
Patty explains, "I think that the challenge has always been in healthcare that it's difficult to automate things in comparison to other industries. If you call retail, it's very hard to get a human. You're constantly dealing with bots or being deflected to digital front doors versus in healthcare, as much as organizations have tried to push people to the digital apps and MyCharts and different things like that, it's been difficult. And there are good reasons, and there are bad reasons for that."
"When you think about scheduling, scheduling really drives your revenue cycle because if people don't come to your organization, you can't bill them for things, you can't bill their insurance. And so your organization has problems with the revenue cycles. That's why I say they're inextricably linked, and it's very important to solve the access problem in order to solve the revenue cycle problem."
"So, making sure that you match that patient with the right provider, making sure that you have the right requirements around insurance authorization and things like that. And then, of course, letting the patient understand what their burden will be as far as the charges go for that appointment is all part of the dance, so to speak. And that really requires a large language model that can consume and understand that information. You're right, the decision trees weren't going to work as far as an AI piece goes."
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