7 Ways to Increase Patient Satisfaction & Improve Patient Experience
Patient satisfaction is more than a metric to impress business directors and increase payor reimbursement.
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This single factor can turn patients into promoters, improve the quality of healthcare, and improve your practice’s financial performance. And here’s the best part: Patient satisfaction already matters to the healthcare workers inside your clinics since their patients’ well-being is why they come to work.
However, despite their best efforts to focus on their patients, healthcare providers face challenges that also consume their attention and time like technology updates and legislative reform. Add to this to the increasing market pressures, and it’s easy to see why improving patient satisfaction may feel like an afterthought.
Thankfully, improving patient satisfaction isn’t a heavy lift. There are a few adjustments your practice can make to the patient experience that don’t require a fundamental shift in how you do business.
Here are seven simple ways to put patient experience back at the front of your practice focus, and how Business Integrity Services may be able to simplify the process and amplify the return.
1. Upgrade your first impression
Several things can impact a patient’s satisfaction before they ever step foot into a medical practice or surgery center. The appointment scheduling process is one that can be a significant pain point for patients, especially when systems are hard to use, appointment times are difficult to come by, and the scheduler lacks soft skills. Changes in the customer experience market mean that patients expect a certain level of intuitiveness when it comes to technology introduced through appointment reminders and confirmations, bill pay, and more.
2. Provide patient education
There’s a direct correlation between patient satisfaction and the value of information they take away from their visit. Providers can improve perceived value by taking time to educate their patients. This doesn’t necessarily mean an increase in visit length, but doctors and other providers can be sure patients are informed by providing educational handouts, sending follow-up emails, and ensuring they address questions during their scheduled visits.
3. Establish a feedback loop
Inevitably, patients may occasionally feel dissatisfied with their visits despite your best efforts. Making it easy for them to share their concerns is an effective way to mitigate the impact of a bad experience and even help retain them as loyal clients. Giving them access to digital surveys and allowing them to speak with designated service reps are helpful ways to let patients express and resolve concerns that come up.
4. Improve follow-up
Keeping patients engaged after their visit is another way providers can improve their overall satisfaction. Sending promised educational materials, timely health-related reminders, and promised referrals makes patients feel valued — and more likely to return and remain with a practice. Setting up workflows that automatically send patients standard materials to alleviate pressure on your team is one solution, another is having these requests come through your designated scheduling/ patient experience team members.
5. Protect patient information
Protecting your patient privacy is not only the right thing to do — it’s also your legal responsibility. Failing to do so can have a major implication on your business. To preserve patient satisfaction and avoid serious legal and financial consequences when it comes to data security, having the right systems, teams, and oversight in place is a must.
6. Set transparent expectations
Transparency is a very low-cost adjustment providers can make to improve the patient experience. If the schedule goes long and a patient is expected to wait an hour or more, let them at check-in. This honesty will help them readjust their expectations and reduce uncertainty, which will mitigate the impact on their overall experience.
7. Make communication a priority
Communication is often one of the areas where patients experience friction. Asking key questions can help you improve communication between your office and your patients. How easy is it for patients to find contact information? Do patients have more than one method of getting in touch? Additionally, having agents and representatives on the team that are bilingual will improve communication and satisfaction for patients when it comes to your practice.
Improving patient experience is an evolving task. The willingness to reassess your practice regularly is the first best step to getting ahead of what patients need from you as a healthcare provider. At BIS, we offer a custom analysis of current processes with recommendations to improve the dynamics that keep patients happy and grow the business successfully.
Contact us to schedule a patient experience analysis and click here to learn more about the way we do things differently.