Is Your Patient Experience Really What You Think?
It is very nice to believe we all work hard to create the best Patient Experience we can in our office everyday right? We train our teams on how best to interact with our patients. We train our staff on the details of every discipline. We even send out a survey to attain valuable “feedback” from time to time. But is it working? Do these efforts really provide us the results we strive for?
Better yet, what are we actively and intentionally doing to create the “Best” patient experience we can create every day? Are we innovative? It’s hard work!
Best Practice for Best Patient Experience
Below I have outlined a few Best Practices I believe will help you in your quest for Best Patient Experience. I believe working these concepts every day, along with other Best Practice business systems, we can really get that valued repeat/referral patient coming back time and again! They will not want to look at any other options available to them but you. Make no mistake……your competitors are trying to acquire your patients every day.
After all, in the end, our desire is to keep our patients/customers coming back over and over again. It takes consistent, intentional effort and a lot of hard work to get, grow and keep that perfect customer/patient. We know it is far less expensive to market to an established, satisfied and happy customer/patient than to a new customer/patient. Customer/patient acquisition costs are very expensive in the market today. To retain, re-sell, cross-sell and up- sell to existing satisfied customers/patients makes good common sense and practice business sense.
Make no mistake, I am not confusing quality medical diagnosis and medical care with patient/customer experience. These are two very different discussions. In patient/customer experience, I am referring to the overall feeling or sense of value a patient receives from their experience with your office, not the quality of medical care.
The Importance of Business Systems
Business Systems, when implemented properly, control the flow and rhythm in everything we accomplish on a day to day basis. Good systems drive good results. To implement the proper checks and balance systems in Patient/Customer Experience is critical to measure, monitor, adjust and control the outcome we desire.
Once we have identified that perfect patient/customer, now what? Certainly we expect to provide our services at the highest level, but what is next? The patient service after the office interaction is every bit as valuable as the office visit itself. In fact, I believe it is even more important as it sets up your relationship for the future.
Sustaining and Maximizing Patient Flow
To best offer a sustainable service to your patients, medical offices must understand and predict patient flow and overall economic value to maintain service. What is the lifetime value of a patient in your practice? Are you maximizing that value to remain sustainable? Are you aware of the patient/customer lifetime value potential? Or are you simply happy with the one-and-done transaction as many have been. In this very changing climate of medical practice management, understanding these key economic metrics are of the highest value.
Patient / Customer Experience Inventory
Here are a few test statements to review in your practice and patient/customer experience. Please rate your efforts from 1 being very poor to 10 being excellent.
| 1. | My patient service teams always deliver on the promises made by our mission and values statements. |
| 2. | The practice patient/customer service always meets or exceeds our patient’s expectations. |
| 3. | We have a consistent documented process for delivering patient/customer service. |
| 4. | We never point fingers at anyone else. Your problem is our problem. |
| 5. | Our leadership team members and associates always honor our practice values and maintain professional appearance & demeanor at all times. NO exceptions. |
| 6. | We consistently deliver on time and in instances where we are not, our team will notify our patients/customers immediately. |
| 7. | We pay attention to patient/customer dissatisfaction and we make it right every time. No excuses, ever. |
| 8. | We have a formal appreciation program designed to enhance our patient/customer experience with us. |
| 9. | We survey our patient/customer regularly to determine how we are performing. We always take action on what we learn. |
| 10. | Based on our patient/client feedback, we constantly assess and improve our systems and service delivery offerings. |
Upon review of your patient/customer experience systems, where do you line up? Do you intentionally implement similar concepts as stated above? Do you think of these concepts but have no idea where to start?
Look, there is no perfect moment to begin this process and no crystal ball to illustrate the results. There is no perfect system, nor is there simple black or white. Most of the time in patient/customer experience, frankly there is a lot of gray area. There are many variables that do not exist in the normal world, no doubt. However, if you have and use proven systems and best in class policies in your practice and for your patient/customer, I am willing to bet you will see lifetime patient/customer value soar.
These best practice policies when properly implemented, will remove the gray area and provide you and your leadership team much more clarity. Your teams will know and understand how to behave and conduct themselves at all times without exception and without you having to physically be present. Your valued patients/clients will know what to expect. After all, most conflict arises due to inefficient communication and misaligned expectation in any interaction. What would happen if everyone was literally on the same page?
ACTION STEP
Take a moment and test your PATIENT/CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE practice. Match up your current behavior against the above ten best practices. How do you and your practice measure up? What are you doing intentionally, right now to improve business systems in your practice?
Execute with consistent effort every day these Patient/Customer Experience Best Practice procedures and watch your practice grow. Watch your team morale soar as unnecessary conflict is eliminated. It has been my observation that without intentional effort and hard work, improvement will not happen by itself. Execute with purpose, priority, pride and passion in all you do every day and enjoy a lifetime customer value never seen before!
If you would like guidance and assistance implementing a more robust patient/customer experience, reach out to me today. Contact me to help improve your overall results and develop more harmony in your practice every day!
I bet you can!
Jeff
Jeffrey A. Rogers, CPBC
Jeffrey A. Rogers Executive Business Coaching
1805 James St.
Syracuse, NY 13206
315-430-0657
JeffRogersCoach.com
jeffrogerscoach@gmail.com
