Patient Satisfaction: How to Exceed Expectations

Did you know that 60% of patients have had a negative healthcare experience recently?

Let us ask you this… does your medical practice regularly administer client satisfaction surveys? If you are not, why haven’t you chose to do so yet? Medical Group Management Association (MGMA) found that 60% of practices that are performing well regularly use satisfaction surveys to gauge their organization’s performance. This helps them to measure, evaluate, and improve on their practices to better suit the needs of their patients.

In the age of consumerism in healthcare it is now more important than ever for provider’s to ensure that their patients are happy with their quality of care. If patients aren’t happy, they tend to defect to a new practice all together. The options are endless, and consumers are no longer afraid to leave and find someone new to care for them. How do you exceed expectations and satisfy your patients? Let’s find out.

Transparency

If you state that you will contact a patient in a week, be sure to follow up with them within that time frame. This is vital regardless of whether or not you have the information the phone call warrants. This lets them know that they are still top of mind and important. This also give yours practice the opportunity to let the patient know when the results or information they are seeking will be available. This eliminates numerous follow up calls from the patient.

Also, this holds true for informing patients of unexpected wait times that may delay their appointments. Being transparent with your patient helps them to feel more informed about their care. This increases their overall satisfaction about their experience at your practice making them more likely to remain your patient.

Follow Up

Post-op follow up calls should always be planned out and delivered. Even beyond this, patients who have received care at your practice should receive a follow up call regardless. This gauges how they felt about the service they received while at your practice and can provide you with a pulse of the care that you deliver to the public. This is a simple, yet manual, task that will not take your staff long to complete but can make all of the difference. Reinforce that your patients are in fact people and you care about how they feel once they receive your care.

Implementing CARE

CARE stands for compassion, acknowledgement, reasonable expectations, and excellent service. These all sound very reasonable elements to accomplish across the spectrum of care at your practice, right? That is why all of these are so critical to maintain and enforce. When patients are sick, they seek compassion from their care provider to help them heal and feel better. They want to feel acknowledged as they move throughout the healing process and like they have not been left behind or forgotten. Both you and your patient have set reasonable expectations for what this care should look like and how health outcomes will be achieved – discuss them. Excellent customer service should always be a forefront of care, and all of these elements rolled together should produce CARE.

When it comes to exceeding the expectations of your patients, it comes down to being a trusted adviser in their healthcare. You need to be attentive, informative, and compassionate towards them. If you remain transparent, follow up, and implement CARE at your practice, you will see patient satisfaction increase at your practice.

Are you looking to exceed patient expectations at your practice? Of course you are. We can help. Visit micromd.com or call 1-800-624-8832 for more information.