Healthcare’s altruistic nature can make it difficult to acknowledge the business side of running a practice. The business side of things focuses heavily on customer satisfaction. Yet clinicians hate to think of their patients as customers. It is a struggle, which leads to the following question: is patient satisfaction built into your call answering policies?
Though online portals now provide easy access to medical practices, the phones remain a main contact point between clinicians and patients. A certain number of patients will always prefer to speak with reception over the phone. And of course, online portals are not very helpful in emergencies. So ensuring strong policies that promote patient satisfaction is still a priority.
Dissatisfaction Is Bad News
Dissatisfaction is bad news for practices and patients alike. From the business side of things, dissatisfaction with the way calls are answered could lead to patients seeking health services elsewhere. On the patient care side of things, dissatisfaction could lead to negative outcomes.
A 2017 pilot study conducted by Pennsylvania’s Pinnacle Health System and Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center revealed some interesting things about how medical practices handle calls and the effects of their policies on patients. The study made clear just how important patient satisfaction is.
Researchers concluded that medical practices and larger healthcare facilities alike need to make patient satisfaction over the phone a priority. As long as patients continue to call, making sure they have a positive experience is a must.
Tips for Improving Call Service
Our best advice for improving patient satisfaction over the phone is to bring in a third-party medical answering service. Providers like Apello are experts at handling incoming phone calls. We can take messages, provide triage, schedule appointments, forward critical calls, and more.
In the absence of a medical answering service, healthcare providers could do the following:
1. Prioritize Telephone Etiquette
Telephone etiquette is critical in that it sets the stage for the entire conversation. What a caller experiences within the first minute or so influences the remainder of the call. With that in mind, all personnel tasked with answering phones should be trained in proper etiquette.
2. Practice Active Listening
Next, it is imperative that receptionists and office staff practice active listening. Active listening involves both hearing and acknowledging what callers are saying. It involves actually understanding what a caller is driving at rather than merely responding with a scripted answer.
3. Be Careful About Too Many Options
Patience can be easily overwhelmed if they are presented with too many options. This is especially true when a caller is a concerned caregiver trying to find answers for an ill loved one. It is better to limit the options in favor of providing clear, concise answers and advice. When warranted, calls should be forwarded to the appropriate person or department without delay.
4. Utilize Automated Systems Cautiously
Perhaps the most poignant tip of all is to utilize automated systems cautiously. A general rule in our industry is that callers would prefer to speak to humans over machines. The rule is especially applicable in healthcare. When a parent is calling the doctor about a sick child, the last thing she wants is to navigate an automated system. She wants to hear the voice of a real human who can both empathize with her and give her answers.
It’s clear that patient satisfaction over the phones affects both the business and care side of things. Despite how much change technology has brought to business-customer communications, the phone still plays an important role in healthcare. So patient satisfaction should not be ignored.
