Customer service can make or break an experience. What about when the customer is a patient, who may be scared, worried, confused, or overwhelmed? In that case, customer service may be even more important than ever.
Patient Satisfaction
Patient satisfaction is at the core of patient-centered medicine. Improved patient satisfaction not only leads to an enhanced patient experience – something every sick or injured patient deserves – it is also associated with improved treatment outcomes. In a health care setting, patients are the customers, and that takes the concept of customer service to a whole new level: providing them with excellent service and improving their satisfaction does more than just make them happy. It can also help improve their outcomes.
It’s important to remember that one size may not fit all. When a…patient’s circumstances don’t fit into your list of expected scenarios, you need smiling, helpful, empathetic employees, administrators, managers, executives who will address what needs to be done (including simply delivering an apology)…
Online Reviews
In this day and age, people share their experiences – positive and negative – on social media and beyond. When patients are made to feel anxious, humiliated, inconvenienced, or uncomfortable, they can share the details – and then it becomes an exercise in reputation recovery. If an organization has basic service essentials in place, that can help ensure that everyone on staff is helping to fulfill the brand promise.
What determines whether a patient’s experience is positive or negative? Further, what determines whether a social media post will be full of praise or full of condemnation? It all boils down to two concepts: attention and communication. Yes, that probably seems incredibly simple, but the truth is that too many patients are going through sometimes life-changing medical procedures in hospitals without these two basic needs – and rights – being met.
Affordable Care Act
The Affordable Care Act provided patients with additional options and coverage, and it introduced new systems of accountability for providers. It created a hospital reward system that focuses on quality of care and maintenance of high levels of patient satisfaction. Hospitals are forced to improve their service to patients or risk losing Medicare money.
Under this system, patient satisfaction scores matter in a whole new way: the new payment rate combines hospitals’ patient satisfaction scores with a measure of whether hospitals follow a dozen procedural metrics for treating ailments. Getting high marks from patients has become a priority for hospitals nationwide.
The Best Care
At 365 Healthcare Staffing Services, we specialize in the recruitment and placement of healthcare professionals in per diem, travel, and permanent assignments in healthcare facilities across the country. If you’re committed to providing the very best care to patients, we’d love to talk with you. Are you ready to find your next placement? Give us a call at 310.436.3650 today.
