How Can Healthcare Providers Fight Blocked Calls and Call Spoofing?

US consumers receive billions of robocalls per year, prompting the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to make fighting unlawful robocalls and malicious caller ID spoofing one of its top priorities.

This has led to implementation of the Secure Telephone Identity Revisited (STIR) and Signature-based Handling of Asserted Information Using toKENs (SHAKEN) standards, a framework that requires wireless carriers to use a set of technical standards and protocols that enable the authentication and verification of caller ID information traversing their networks. In the simplest terms, STIR/SHAKEN digitally scores how certain the carrier is the outgoing call is made by the owner of the number.

The goal is to reduce robocalls or spoofed calls, and ultimately rebuild consumers’ — and patients’ — confidence the caller IDs they see on their phones are trustworthy.

STIR/SHAKEN appears to be working

According to a study by Juniper Research, STIR/SHAKEN “reduced the year-on-year growth of fraudulent losses to robocalling in North America by 85% between 2022 and 2023.”

That’s great news, particularly for healthcare providers who need to reach patients with important, sometimes urgent, medical information. Ultimately, as robocalls and spoofing attempts are thwarted, more people will pick up when called, and for the most part, healthcare providers are happy with the changes.

According to our newly released study — The Enterprise Call Experience in 2023: Healthcare Report — 70% of healthcare providers said the benefits outweigh the costs, and a significant number saw increased revenue as a result of STIR/SHAKEN.

The framework isn’t without its challenges

For all its benefits, STIR/SHAKEN does increase the risk your legitimate healthcare organization will be tagged as SPAM or blocked if your service provider can’t verify the call.

In fact, nearly 80% of respondents estimated more than 20% of their outbound calls were blocked over the last six months, and 77% said more than 10% of their calls were mislabeled as SPAM during that same time. That’s a significant number of calls that simply aren’t getting through to patients. Spoofing and blocked calls can occur anywhere in the patient journey, including:

Appointment reminders
Information gathering
Insurance information
Prescriptions
Provider follow-up
Payments

Healthcare providers need a way to authenticate their own outbound calls

In some cases, service providers can’t differentiate between legitimate and spoofed calls. It’s up to healthcare organizations to take steps to ensure their calls are getting through — and most aren’t fully prepared to do so.

Our research found less than half (48%) of respondents were either extremely or very satisfied with their organization’s ability to prevent outbound calls from being blocked or flagged as SPAM. That leaves the majority of healthcare companies in need of a solution that leverages STIR/SHAKEN call authentication to do the work for them.

TransUnion has solutions to help. TruContact™ Branded Call Display helps you authenticate your calls while also displaying your business name, logo, and reason for the call on patients’ mobile displays.

With a quick glance, patients can trust it’s your healthcare organization calling, increasing the likelihood they’ll answer and enabling you to improve answer rates.

For more insights to help you navigate your outbound call strategy, download the full Enterprise Call Experience in 2023: Healthcare Report.