Family Practice/Private Practice:
1. Manage your front staff.
Your front staff has a direct correlation on patient satisfaction. If they are not doing a good job managing greeting patients when they arrive, are not keeping up on administrative tasks, and dealing with rude, angry, or otherwise difficult patients, you have a problem. One technique to use as a physician is to contact the office as a "new patient" and see how your experience is.
2. Make your billing practices transparent
Patients never like surprises, so work to determine quickly whether they are insured and the carrier is accepted by the practice. Clearly have in writing your policy for billing uncovered costs, how you treat unpaid balances, and consider a policy disclosure that the patient signs and understands. You will have a better chance of getting paid also!
3. Spruce up your waiting room
Take a good look at your waiting room and make sure it's a great place for your patients. Are your magazines up to day? Do you offer free Wi-Fi? Do you have a HD TV set with closed captioning tuned to the news and muted? Are you playing relaxing background music? How about some plants and nice wall art? If the patient is relaxed, then they are probably satisfied.
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4. Are you on time and do you say I'm sorry when you are late?
Your patients time may be as valuable as yours, so don't make them wait if possible. Nothing can be more frustrating than waiting 45 minutes for an appointment or sitting in an exam room with nothing but a thin gown on. Never hide the fact that you are running behind and have a staff member give an update on your schedule every 15 minutes. Shy away from the overbooking appointments to compensate for no shows. Your patients will appreciate it.
5. Have your staff knock on the exam room door before entering
No matter how short your time is, barging into an exam room may make some patients uncomfortable. Knocking and waiting a few seconds is very courteous and patients will appreciate the effort to respect their privacy.
6. Follow-up with your patients
Patients may have anxiety about their visit or pending test results. By follow-up with the patient and reporting results in a timely many will show you did not forget about them the minute they left the office.
Medical Facilities and Hospitals:
7. Spend time with your patients
The main thing that most patients want when in a hospital is time with their doctors and nurses. This is becoming more of a challenge every day and information technology (lack of it, or slowness) is biting a bigger chunk of a physicians time than ever. Swing your pendulum back to direct patient care, and you will have happier patients!
8. Work on lowering the noise
A very common complaint from patient's with longer hospital stays is the lack of a good night's sleep. Sleep is critical to the healing process, and having a noisy roommate, noisy staff, and repeated wake ups during the night will lead to disgruntled patients.
9. Improve the menu
If the food is bad, so is the patient's mood. It does not have to be gourmet, but with a little effort, hospital staff can serve food that they could eat and enjoy themselves.
10. Be upfront about wait times
This may be hard to accomplish, but giving the patient and their families an accurate wait time for a CT scan for example, can make the patient much happier. They will know when to eat or not and family stress will be lower.
11. SMILE!
There is nothing better to relieve a patient's anxiety and increase satisfaction than a smile...this is true for all medical facility settings and having the patient see you smile, will probably make them do the same.
The Hire Connection offers its clients the industry's most comprehensive range of healthcare recruitment services.
Coupling technology, expertise and accountability, The Hire Connection services are designed to source, screen, qualify, present and place the RIGHT providers to satisfy recruitment goals and improve provider retention. Give us a call today!
SUBSCRIBE TODAY!
Let's Connect!
The Hire Connection offers its clients the industry's most comprehensive range of healthcare recruitment services.
Coupling technology, expertise and accountability, The Hire Connection services are designed to source, screen, qualify, present and place the RIGHT providers to satisfy recruitment goals and improve provider retention. Give us a call today!
SUBSCRIBE TODAY!
Let's Connect!
