With a wide range of healthcare choices these days, customers are making decisions based on three major factors: accessibility, cost, and quality of service.
3 Tips and Elevate your Medical Services to Brilliant Level
Patient engagement and satisfaction plays a key role in the success of your medical practice. While you may have good background, skills, and experience, it still boils down on how satisfied your patients are with your service.
Providing customer satisfaction is a huge challenge among many medical practitioners. The reason is that healthcare “customers” are very different from that of any other industry because these people usually come to your clinic afraid and anxious.
Here are three critical steps that can elevate your service to a brilliant level:
1. Take advantage of the newest technology
In this ever-so complicated and busy world, healthcare customers want nothing but convenience – from the moment they search for a physician or clinic to the time they book an appointment, wait in the queue, and get their medical results.
Your customers, especially the millennials (which most likely comprise the biggest portion of the population), want more convenient, technology-integrated and centralized healthcare. Examine your current practice flow and see what can be enhanced and/or shortened.
Consider implementing an online appointment booking, scheduling, and check-in process. Setting up a practice website allows your patients to make appointments online. This will reduce calls in your office and free your receptionist’s time. You may also allow patients to enter their information online so everything is ready by the time they arrive in your clinic.
By improving your practice flow, you are making the healthcare process a convenient and stress-free experience to your patients.
2. Keep your clinic clean and conducive.
First impressions last. By the time customers step into your clinic, they’ve already made an impression, depending on what they see and smell. Clean and comfortable waiting rooms, exam rooms, front desks, and restrooms are important. How many patients complain that they don’t want to go to hospitals and clinics because they get sick?
Keeping your office clean is essential to keeping your customers happy and engaged. Consider hiring a professional cleaning company to conduct thorough cleaning in your office. Also, train your staff to be more mindful of their surroundings and implement proper cleaning hygiene. Use appropriate cleaning solutions and make disinfectant wipes readily available to sanitize surfaces, from the telephone to your desk and equipment clean. Wipes are very convenient and effective to use when cleaning surfaces, even laboratory equipment. Consider stacking some by the entrance area so even your patients can wipe down the door handle as they come and go.
You also want to make your clinic conducive. Go sit in your waiting room for an hour one day and see how inviting it is. Have tea or coffee available, and offer bottled water to your patients. Make sure your staff are all smiling. This is very important and helps establish a solid positive impression on your practice.
3. Make follow-ups
This is one of the most important yet overlooked aspects of customer service in the healthcare industry. As their care provider, it is your goal to ensure that your patients achieve their health goals. Your connection to your patients should not end by the time they leave your clinic. You should make sure that they recover fast and all their other concerns are met.
This is where follow-throughs come in. Consider the following ways to effectively follow-up with your patients and keep track of their recovery:
- Set standard follow up calls and be sure that tests results are communicated promptly
- Allow access to medical records through an online portal
- Create a newsletter to keep them informed about the relevant information
- Consider surveying patients and use their feedback to continually improve your service level
Communication is the key to keeping your customers engaged. By doing the ‘extra mile’, you can make your patients feel that you value and care for them.
Too many doctors spend hours, months, and years improving their knowledge, without thinking about improving their approach to patient care. But it’s not enough that you help your patients recover. You should also give them a positive experience throughout their healthcare journey.