Eight Tips to Improve Patient Experience in Healthcare
Make use of the simple tips in this blog to improve your patient experience..
How To Improve Patient Experience?
You could achieve an improved patient experience by avoiding time wastage and efficiently handling the appointment management through a well-organized and seamless appointment scheduling. It is a streamlined journey of a unified compilation of the various communications between the patient and the healthcare provider.
The quality of the healthcare offered assists in improving the patient experience, through quicker appointments without many delays, easy access to the required information without much hassle and excellent and clear communication with the patient. By maintaining a perfect patient-provider relationship, you could stay assured of improving the patient experience to absurd levels in healthcare while sustaining an exceptional revenue flow.
Let us discuss below the most efficient eight tips to improve the patient experience and boost the revenue cycle performance:
Excellent Rapport With Patients Regarding Their Procedure-related Queries
Efficiently managing the patient’s inbound and outbound calls is the prime key to elevating the patient experience to higher levels. It is pretty essential to understand the patient’s queries by listening patiently. During direct interaction with the patient, it is necessary to maintain good eye contact and remain courteous throughout the communication.
The patients would undoubtedly have many questions to ask for clarification on the procedures and medical care services. The staff needs to understand and answer them well, explaining clearly and cheerfully. To do so, the staff team must thoroughly know the healthcare facility and its entire procedures.
Upgraded & Omnichannel Communication Modes
Upgrading the healthcare facility’s overall communication system to an exceptional customer relationship management (CRM) platform is essential. It eases the task of scheduling appointments, maintaining the documentation or conducting various activities related to the patient.
Especially after the pandemic has struck us hard, it is evident that people choose multiple modes such as social media, emails, SMS, and live video calls to communicate. By providing this wide variety of communication modes, you surely increase the patient’s convenience and help enhance patient satisfaction levels.
Minimize The Wait Times & Maintain An Excellent Waiting Area
When patients arrive for their appointment, they must wait for their turn to meet the physician or undergo medical tests. It is essential to provide them with a comfortable and enjoyable experience as they await their turn. Ensuring the furniture is clean, with good ventilation and proper light increases patient satisfaction.
We would not like our patients to get frustrated with considerably longer wait times. When their time is respected, they feel happy. And if there is a delay, it is better to communicate clearly to the patient well in advance. It indeed offers improvement in patient experience and aids in good revenue capture.
Noise Reduction
Patient satisfaction and the interaction between the provider and patient gets significantly impacted by noise. Mostly while patients visit the hospital, they tend to be either scared, quite ill or depressed or frustrated and, at times, medically unstable. In such cases, patients prefer quieter and calm medical clinics. Even noisy printers and computer systems tend to have an ill effect on the patient’s experience.
Hearing another patient and their conversations creates a lack of trust by giving away the impression that your discussions are not confidential. In case certain noises are inevitable within the hospital, calm and soothing music could be played, which might help the patient to relax and overcome their emotional or physical conditions.
Digitalize The Documentation & Exhibit An Empathetic Attitude Towards The Patient
The patient is relieved of unnecessary time wasted filling in the registration forms by providing the paperwork online. At the same time, there is a rush right before the appointment with the doctor. So the patient is relaxed and fills out the conditions through digital methods at their convenience, which helps improve the patient experience.
The patients love a staff/physician who is a good and empathetic listener. Slight gestures and listening skills make the patient feel comfortable and earn their trust quickly, thereby helping to increase patient satisfaction. When the patient is happy, they come back to you. With patient retention, you enjoy a consistent and healthy revenue cycle.
Consistent Follow-ups & Respond On Time
By sending automated messages/surveys to gather information on patient satisfaction, you ensure that their feedback is valuable. It is crucial to send this email or text right after they visit the healthcare as it would be easy for the patient to recollect their experience without forgetting any.
Responding on time to patient feedback is crucial to improving patient experience in healthcare. Even if they mention their dissatisfaction, it shows that patients experience improvement. In turn, it helps us identify the area of strain in the revenue cycle.
Stay Connected With The Patient & Stay Active On Social Media
Posting helpful content through blogs and other forms on your social media provides ample patient information and helps amplify the patient experience. Carefully research and identify the most commonly asked questions. Post informative and on-time content to help address the doubts raised by the patients frequently.
Staying connected with the patient through regular emails, texts, or newsletters is a must. Patients appreciate thoughtful communication, and it aids in patient experience improvement.
Conclude By Asking The Right Questions & Converting The Patients Into Remarkable Fans
Once you have offered a proper diagnosis and accordingly advised the patient and suggested the appropriate treatments, it is essential to pause and ask the patient if they feel comfortable with the discussed treatments. It is good to ask if they have any particular concerns about how the treatment is proceeding. And also, by asking if the patient has any other doubts or questions for clarification, you help the patient to feel at ease and allow them to relieve their anxieties.
Appointing staff to guide patients to the front desk as soon as they have met with the physician or the healthcare provider and being polite while expressing an interest by enquiring if they are happy with the visit and if they need more answers makes the patient feel good and elevates their experience to a greater level. You can consolidate all the details about their diagnosis and most recommended action plan in a printed summary and provide it to the patient. You can collect their email address by forwarding the invoice copy and requesting their kind feedback. Small gestures by the front desk staff like standing up, smiling and thanking them for visiting you leave a positive impression on the patient about your healthcare organization.
Give Us Thumbs Up To Amplify Your Patient Experience For An Enhanced RCM Performance.
Business Integrity Services has an exceptional team with years of experience who could cheerfully maintain an excellent rapport with your customers. With our incredible CRM platform, we help you handle your registrations easily and manage your documentation. Our digitalized and multiple communication systems provide an ultimate patient experience, allowing you to maintain a healthy revenue cycle.