Pros and Cons of Self-Service Kiosks in Healthcare

By Chloe From Clearwave | March 24, 2025

Considering the pros and cons of self-service kiosks for your healthcare practice? Patient-led technology is playing an increasingly important role in practice success. Practices that embrace these solutions today are positioning themselves for sustainable growth and top-notch reviews in the increasingly competitive healthcare industry of tomorrow.

Self-service kiosks have emerged as a powerful solution that addresses multiple challenges at the same time. Let’s explore the advantages and potential drawbacks of implementing self-service kiosks in healthcare settings.

Alleviates Staff Burdens

Healthcare staff routinely face overwhelming workloads that can lead to burnout and high turnover rates. Self-service kiosks address this challenge, even going beyond other self-registration tools like tablets, by truly automating registration tasks from the moment the patient walks in until they’ve paid and fully checked in. Rather than handing tablets back and forth, helping patients with portal logins or swiping cards at their desk, staff can instead point patients to the kiosk and engage as needed. With the kiosks, staff now have a way to stay on top of other tasks while also greeting patients and answering any questions that come up post check-in.

Reallocation of Valuable Human Resources

When kiosks handle routine registration tasks, front desk staff can focus on more complex and meaningful responsibilities. Sonali Parry, CAO Division 28 Therapy Director, highlights this benefit: 

“We’ve saved on the cost of adding more staff to the front desk, reducing our number of front desk staff altogether and repurposing them elsewhere.”

This reallocation of human resources doesn’t mean eliminating jobs. It means utilizing skilled staff and manual intervention where they can add the most value. Front desk staff can shift their focus to providing personalized assistance to patients who need it most, improving office workflow, and handling complex administrative tasks that require human judgment. Additionally, the scalability of kiosk systems allows practices to accommodate growth—whether adding new providers or  increasing patient volume—without proportionally expanding front desk staff, creating a sustainable staffing model that adapts to changing practice needs.

Operational Continuity

Staffing challenges like sick days, turnover, and training periods often disrupt practice operations. Self-service kiosks provide stability and consistency regardless of staffing fluctuations.

“Clearwave is there, checking in patients and collecting payments every day. When someone calls out sick, we can still operate and keep patient appointments on time, we don’t have to have someone come in to work overtime,” explains Sonali Parry of COA. 

This operational continuity ensures that patient care remains uninterrupted even during staffing transitions.

Transforms Patient Experiences

The patient experience begins long before they see a doctor. Traditional check-in processes often involve lengthy paperwork, repetitive information gathering and uncomfortable waiting periods. Self-service kiosks put patients in control of this process, dropping wait times and improving data accuracy while providing an experience that today’s patients are accustomed to—from the grocery store to the airport.

Reduced Wait Times

With patient-led kiosks, one of the most immediate benefits patients notice is significantly faster check-in times. When patients can manage the registration process on their own, without staff handing them a tablet or looking at their small phone screen, practices see dramatic improvements in efficiency. For example, Pulmonary Associates saw a decrease in average check-in time to 2m16s after implementing kiosks. Creating this efficiency translates to more satisfied patients who spend less time waiting and more time receiving care.

Enhanced Privacy for Sensitive Information

Traditional check-in processes often require patients to discuss personal information, including medical conditions and payment details, at the front desk, where others might overhear. Self-service kiosks provide a private environment for patients to review and update their information, make payments, and handle other sensitive matters without public discussion.

Jeremy Gibbs, Director of Finance at Pulmonary Associates, notes, 

“Patients are going to give us their data, whether staff ask or not. With the kiosks, patients can more accurately provide their information, and we can move our staffing resources to more valuable areas, like verification, which helps us get paid faster and save time.”

This combination of improved data accuracy and privacy creates a win-win situation where patients feel more comfortable sharing information and practices benefit from better data quality for their operational needs.

Improves Financial Performance

Healthcare practices continually struggle with timely collections and revenue management. Self-service kiosks have proven to be particularly effective in addressing these financial challenges.

Increased Point-of-Service Collections

When payments are integrated into the self-service check-in process, collection rates improve dramatically. Centers for Advanced Orthopaedics (CAO) Division 28 reports a consistent monthly co-pay collection rate of 72% with their kiosk implementation. While other practices see upwards of 96% co-pay collection rates, like Southview Medical Group, whose Clinical Systems Manager said,

“We were reaching our goals nearly immediately. We don’t have people lined up out the door. We don’t have loud or packed waiting rooms. To me, the most astounding and surprising fact of it all was that we saw an even quicker increase in past-due and co-pay collections before we saw waiting room times drop.”

There is more than one reason for this success. Self-service kiosks present outstanding balances clearly and consistently to every patient, eliminating the variable of whether a busy staff member remembers to request payment. 

The digital interface also creates a private environment for patients to view their financial obligations and make decisions without feeling rushed or observed. This removes the potential awkwardness of financial discussions between staff and patients, creating a more personal experience while simultaneously improving the practice’s bottom line. Many practices find that patients are more likely to pay when the request comes from a neutral system rather than a person, reducing the emotional barriers that sometimes prevent timely collections.

Accelerated Revenue Cycle

Beyond improving point-of-service collections, self-service kiosks accelerate the entire revenue cycle. Insurance verification is a critical component of this acceleration, as Rachelle Tonga, Director of Administrative Services at Utah Cancer Specialists, explains:

“Clearwave has put a stop to our prior authentication challenges. If there’s an insurance change, we know about it and we can act on it. It’s been a huge relief for our billing and claims processes.”

The system’s automated workflows and the patient’s ability to make updates on-the-spot ensure that insurance information stays current, dramatically reducing denials and resubmissions. Tonga continues:

“Now, during pre-check or at the kiosk, patients have to answer the questions to go to the next screen. If their insurance is expired, the system will prompt patients to update their information and it will notify our staff. It’s astounding how accurate our data is now.“

This real-time verification, complete with improved data accuracy, creates a ripple effect of efficiency throughout the billing process, reducing the time from service to payment and minimizing the administrative burden of claims management.

Enhances Data Accuracy

Medical errors often begin with inaccurate patient information. In fact, 86% of mistakes made in the healthcare industry are administrative errors. Self-service kiosks significantly improve data capture and accuracy compared to traditional methods.

Automated Information Capture

With patient-led kiosks, practices can get all the data they need from patients, filled out by patients themselves, and then imported directly into their source of truth, their practice management system (PMS). This approach removes the likelihood of patients not updating their data or staff manually inputting incorrect information into your PMS. Additionally, Clearwave kiosks, for example, can scan both sides of insurance cards and IDs, automatically uploading these images directly into the PMS. This automation eliminates manual data entry errors that commonly occur with traditional processes. The kiosk implementation improved data accuracy across all their locations.

This observation from Jeremy Gibbs, from Pulmonary Associates, reflects the common frustration many practices face with partial digital solutions before implementing comprehensive kiosk systems:

“With the tablets, we had issues getting all the patient information we needed into our system. There was too much manual entry for our staff. We wanted to move to kiosks so patients would be responsible for inputting and updating in their own information.” 

Reduced Redundant Documentation

Patients often complain about repeatedly completing the same paperwork, especially those who receive ongoing treatment. Smart digital kiosks, like Clearwave, can be configured to streamline the returning patient process, where possible, eliminating redundant information gathering.

As an Occupational Therapist herself, Sonali Parry shares, 

“As a provider, it drove me nuts that patients would have to repeat a lot of their paperwork before seeing us, especially because most of our patients come in multiple times a week. It was a huge patient complaint, and now it’s one we no longer get.”

Considerations Before Choosing a Platform

As you consider the pros and cons of self-service kiosks, remember that not all solutions deliver equal results. The biggest con practices often face when implementing self-service technology is not seeing the results they were promised due to underperforming tools or solutions that require staff to stay involved in the “self-service” process. 

Practices must carefully evaluate potential systems to ensure they truly enhance patient and staff experiences rather than complicate them.

Finding the Right Solution

Not all self-service kiosks are patient-led or successful in delivering the above advantages. Finding a solution that is truly patient-powered and built to improve operational efficiency requires thorough research and due diligence.

Practices should look for solutions that offer comprehensive features, including eligibility verification, payment processing and intuitive interfaces that patients of all ages and technological comfort levels can navigate with minimal assistance.

The experiences each practice shares demonstrate the importance of selecting the right partner. Choosing Clearwave helped each practice see immediate, measurable improvements in check-in times, collection rates and overall efficiency. For example, Pulmonary Associates had a 92% increase in their co-pay collection rate after implementing kiosks, while Utah Cancer Specialists achieved an impressive 90% kiosk patient adoption rate and a 63% Monthly co-pay collection rate, and growing. 

Embracing the Future of Patient-Led Registration

When properly implemented with a patient-focused solution like Clearwave, kiosks can transform practice operations and create measurable improvements for patients, profits and staff.

Learn more about how Clearwave helped Metrolina and Centers for Advanced Orthopaedics in their case studies:

Metrolina Eye Associates Sees Higher Collections & Happier Patients

CAO Division 28 Increases Upfront Payments & Reduces Costs with Kiosks