Patent Issued for Method And Apparatus For Navigating An Automated Telephone System (USPTO 10,542,145)

2020 FEB 05 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Daily News -- According to news reporting originating from Alexandria, Virginia, by NewsRx journalists, a patent by the inventors Cheek, Susan (Kaufman, TX); Storie, Shawn (Wylie, TX), filed on November 30, 2018, was published online on February 3, 2020.

The assignee for this patent, patent number 10,542,145, is Creative Empowering Solutions LLC (Dallas, Texas, United States).

Reporters obtained the following quote from the background information supplied by the inventors: “An automated telephone answering system (‘TAS’) may be used to provide user-specific and other information from a computer database. A caller may need to navigate the menu of an automated telephone answering system in order to obtain such information. Such navigation may require listening and responding to a variety of menu prompts in order to obtain the desired information. If the caller desires to obtain such information from time to time, the caller must call the answering system in each case, thus consuming valuable time. There exists a need for a substantially automated method and apparatus for calling, navigating and retrieving information from an automated telephone answering system.”

In addition to obtaining background information on this patent, NewsRx editors also obtained the inventors’ summary information for this patent: “A method of navigating an automated telephone answering system (TAS), the method comprising the steps of: establishing a first connection by telephone with a human user and a TAS; recording an audible interaction between the human user and the TAS, the interaction comprising prompts from the TAS and responses to the prompts from the human user; dividing such recording into segments, each segment comprising a prompt and a response to said prompt; receiving input from the human user customizing a response; and after receiving the input, storing the segments as a call script. The foregoing method further comprising the steps of: establishing a second connection by telephone with a TAS, the second connection at least initially excluding human user participation; using said call script to interact with a TAS; recording the interaction with the TAS; and transcribing at least part of the recording to text.”

The claims supplied by the inventors are:

“We claim:

“1. A method of navigating a health insurance provider automated telephone answering system (TAS), the method comprising: accessing a recording of a first audible interaction with a health insurance provider TAS, the recording comprising two or more prompts from a health insurance provider TAS and responses to the prompts, the two or more prompts comprising at least one of the following patient information: a patient ID, a healthcare provider ID and/or a patient date of birth; dividing said recording into two or more segments, each segment comprising one of the two or more prompts and the response to said one prompt; after dividing the recording, displaying each segment for review using a call script editor including an interface, the interface configured to present an audible recording or a text version of each of the two or more prompts and the responses provided for the two or more prompts, the call script editor further configured to receive a user input to revise or confirm the responses in order to provide verified segments, each of the verified segments including a verified response for an associated prompt; selecting one or more keywords for at least one of said verified segments; receiving said user input to revise or confirm the responses in order to provide said verified segments; storing the verified segments as a call script file; establishing a connection by telephone with the health insurance provider TAS; using the call script file to audibly interact in a second audible interaction with the health insurance provider TAS, the second interaction including: converting at least one TAS prompt from an audible form to text using a speech-to-text engine; comparing the text to the one or more keywords in order to associate the at least one TAS prompt with a verified response included in said call script file; and responding to the at least one TAS prompt using the verified response.

“2. The method of claim 1, further comprising specifying one or more segments in which the prompt thereof is to be transcribed to text.

“3. The method of claim 2, further comprising associating the call script with the health insurance provider.

“4. The method of claim 3, further comprising associating one or more patients with the health insurance provider.

“5. The method of claim 1, further comprising recording at least a portion of the second audible interaction.

“6. The method of claim 5, further comprising: using the speech-to-text engine to transcribe a portion of the recording, the portion comprising patient-specific health insurance benefit information; and associating the transcribed portion with the patient.

“7. The method of claim 5, further comprising: detecting termination of health insurance provider TAS operation; detecting telephonic hand-off of health insurance provider TAS operation to a human operator; and telephonically connecting the human operator with a human user.

“8. The method of claim 7, further comprising: in detecting telephonic handoff of health insurance provider TAS operation to a human operator, further detecting an existence of a call hold state; if said call hold state is detected, then monitoring the call hold state to detect termination of the call hold state; and upon termination of the call hold state, notifying a human user.

“9. The method of claim 5, further comprising: in the second audible interaction, if the one or more keywords do not substantially correspond to a first prompt of the two or more prompts, then notifying a human user.

“10. The method of claim 9, further comprising: determining if the one or more keywords substantially correspond to a second prompt of the two or more prompts; and if the one or more keywords substantially correspond to the second prompt, then responding to the second prompt according to the call script, and if the one or more keywords do not substantially correspond to the second prompt, then notifying a human user.

“11. The method of claim 9, further comprising: receiving user input specifying a change to the call script; and saving the change to the call script.

“12. The method of claim 5, further comprising providing a call history indicating successful calls for which insurance coverage information was fully received by audible interaction with the healthcare provider TAS and indicating unsuccessful calls in which insurance coverage information was not fully received by audible interaction with the healthcare provider TAS.

“13. The method of claim 1, wherein said call script editor is configured to receive user input associated with one or more selectable response types, the response types selectable using the interface and including at least one of patient ID category, healthcare provider ID category and patient date of birth category.

“14. A method of navigating a health insurance provider automated telephone answering system (TAS), the method comprising: accessing at least one of two or more segments of a recording of a first audible interactions with a health insurance provider TAS, the audible interactions including two or more prompts from a health insurance provider TAS, the two or more prompts comprising a request for at least one of the following patient information: a patient ID, a healthcare provider ID and/or a patient date of birth, each of the two or more segments including one of said two or more prompts; displaying said at least one segment using a call script editor having a call script editor interface, the interface configured to present an audible recording or a text version of a prompt for said at least one segment; providing a menu of responses to said prompt and receiving a user input selecting a response from said menu of responses; storing said response as part of a call script file; after establishing a connection by telephone with the health insurance provider TAS, using the call script file to audibly interact in a second audible interaction with the health insurance provider TAS, the second audible interaction including: converting at least one TAS prompt from an audible form to text using a speech-to-text engine; comparing the text to one or more keywords in order to associate the at least one TAS prompt with said response included in said call script file; and responding to the at least one TAS prompt using said response to obtain health insurance benefit information for a patient.

“15. The method of claim 14 said response being a category response comprising at least one of patient ID category, healthcare provider ID category and patient birthday category.

“16. The method of claim 15 further comprising using the call script file to obtain health insurance benefit information for a plurality of patients.

“17. The method of claim 16, the benefit information for said plurality of patients being obtained with a single connection by telephone.

“18. A system for navigating a health insurance provider automated telephone answering system (TAS), the system comprising: a computer configured to perform call script editing, the computer configured to: access at least one of two or more segments of a recording of an audible interaction with a health insurance provider TAS, the audible interaction including two or more prompts from a health insurance provider TAS, the two or more prompts comprising a request for at least one of the following patient information: a patient ID, a healthcare provider ID and/or a patient date of birth, each of the two or more segments including one of said two or more prompts; display said at least one segment using a call script editor graphical user interface, the interface configured to present an audible recording or a text version of a prompt for said at least one segment; provide a menu of responses to said prompt and receiving a user input selecting a response from among said menu of responses; create a call script file linking said prompt with said response; establish a connection by telephone with a health insurance provider TAS; and audibly interact with a health insurance provider TAS using the call script file, the audible interaction including converting at least one TAS prompt from an audible form to text using a speech-to-text engine, comparing the text to one or more keywords in order to associate the at least one TAS prompt with said response included in said call script file, and responding to the at least one TAS prompt using said response to obtain benefit information for a patient.

“19. The system of claim 18 further comprising a telephone system configured for operation using said computer.

“20. The system of claim 18, said computer comprising a server computer configured for accessing recorded data from a server database.”

For more information, see this patent: Cheek, Susan; Storie, Shawn. Method And Apparatus For Navigating An Automated Telephone System. U.S. Patent Number 10,542,145, filed November 30, 2018, and published online on February 3, 2020. Patent URL: http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=10,542,145.PN.&OS=PN/10,542,145RS=PN/10,542,145

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