If you manage a medical practice or a healthcare organization, you juggle many roles. In addition to overseeing patient care and managing compliance with various local and federal regulations, you also navigate the complexities of staffing, budgeting, and technology integration. Balancing these responsibilities amidst an increasingly complex healthcare landscape requires a commitment to continuous improvement and adaptation. Patient satisfaction, once considered a secondary concern in the healthcare industry, has now emerged as a core metric for measuring the success and effectiveness of medical practices.
What is healthcare without a patient-centered approach? Patient satisfaction is a crucial metric in the healthcare world, which, to put it plainly, means every interaction matters. From the time a patient first contacts your healthcare practice, to the time they come in for an appointment to billing and follow-up scheduling, every interaction is an opportunity to earn this patient’s loyalty. In today’s world, everything is measurable, which means even something as seemingly insignificant as a phone call may impact patient satisfaction. And since healthcare is a highly personal, and often emotional experience for patients and their caregivers and loved ones, empathy is a must.
Did you know that medical offices receive an estimated 2,000 calls on a daily basis? Furthermore, more than 50% of customers typically use the phone to connect with service providers. Although younger patients or caregivers may have adopted new technologies such as secure messaging to schedule appointments and stay in touch with providers, phones are still the most frequently used mode of communication for patient relations. The reason for a call may range from actual medical emergencies to more routine questions such as referrals or billing. Regardless of the reason, healthcare providers can no longer afford to miss a call or to provide less-than-excellent experience for every phone interaction.
Let’s review some of the common mistakes and how to address them as a healthcare provider with the help of a medical answering service.
Lack of consistency affects patient satisfaction
The biggest mistake you can make that affects patient satisfaction is to provide inconsistent service, whether that is your front desk staff or healthcare practitioners. When patients reach out to your practice, they expect a consistent experience over time. This might mean familiar faces at your in-person office, or recognizable names and voices when connecting with your answering service team. If you run an orthodontics practice, as an example, the treatment course may take two or three years. Over this time, both patients and their families become accustomed to walking into your office for an adjustment or calling to schedule their next visit. They may also need to call after hours in case there is a problem with their orthodontic appliance, such as a loose wire that can’t wait until the next appointment. Particularly when dealing with busy parents of young children, consistent communication is key to earning high satisfaction ratings and loyalty.
That’s where a professional answering service comes in to save the day (or night). When patients or caregivers call your medical answering service after hours, they will receive a consistent experience, thanks to regular training and ongoing quality assurance measures. These procedures are in place at your answering service to maintain an easily recognizable and pleasant interaction with any team member your patients could speak to after hours. In a healthcare setting, callers are looking for easy-to-access services with on-call support that can address patient concerns on the first inquiry. This is simply impossible to provide without a reliable medical answering service.
Lack of availability hurts patient satisfaction scores
Everyone has experienced the frustration of staying on the phone trying to connect to a real person, only to be stuck in an endless automated loop, with no end in sight. Some practices rely on automated voice response systems to handle after-hours requests. But patients expect an experience that focuses on the whole person and treats them like a valuable human being, not just pressing “1” or “2” from a limited menu of possible reasons for the call.
An Ipsos survey found that 43% of Americans were unsatisfied with the medical system, which was almost double the percentage of other developed countries. When individuals feel that their providers aren’t available when they need them most, scenarios like the one above only feed into the decline of patient satisfaction over time. But how do you balance your own time and resources with this demand for 24/7 availability?
This is another scenario where an answering service saves the day. When you work with a professional medical answering service, you can become a highly available resource for your patients for a variety of requirements. With 24/7 services and 365 days a year availability, you can actually enjoy your hard-earned time off and holidays, while the answering service can take care of caller requests, recognize emergency calls in real-time, and route queries to your designated on-call providers, as per your rules. Call handling capabilities are an important factor to consider when maintaining consistent customer service across individuals, with people using phrases like, “they are always friendly,” or “they always answer.” These types of comments and conversations only serve to improve your office’s relationships with patients and maintain a positive reputation in your communities.
Lack of Training Puts A Damper On Patient Satisfaction Scores
Training your entire staff in appropriate and positive customer interactions is time-consuming, particularly when staff turnover is high. Just when you think you’ve onboarded and trained a new team member, their circumstances may change and they may give their notice and quit. Then, it’s back to the drawing board, interviewing, hiring, and training a new team member. And, of course, answering phones is only one part of their job. In contrast, professional answering services focus on one job: answering phones. They take care of the hiring and training, as well as ongoing quality assurance so that your medical practices can shine in the patient satisfaction department. This is especially vital when patients are giving personal information and identifiers over the phone. HIPAA-compliant messaging and call handling techniques come standard as part of some answering services. Now more than ever, it’s time for the helping professions to stand up against negative patient interactions. When you build a lasting relationship with your answering service, you create a bond that aligns with your standards and consistently meets your patient satisfaction goals. Throughout your contract, you can reach out to your answering service contact at any point to review and listen to any call. Your partner answering service team will keep internal records that allow you to have access to any patient interaction for quality assurance purposes. Partnering with an answering service allows us to help you maintain consistent, available, and highly compassionate professional call answering, and avoid the most common mistakes that healthcare organizations make that negatively affect patient satisfaction. Say goodbye to missed calls and less-than-stellar phone interactions, say hello to higher patient satisfaction and loyalty with a professional medical answering service in your corner.
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