Patients see time differently than most providers. They care about how much time they spend in the waiting room and how much time they spend with you. If you are working on an enhanced patient experience, you may want to consider the patient’s point of view.
Areas that patients pay particular attention to include how long it takes to get an appointment, how responsive you or your staff are on returning phone calls, the timeliness of lab results and the actual time spent during an appointment, as mentioned above.
You should take each of these measurable points and create goals for your office. Make the goals from the patient’s perspective not the office perspective. Most patients don’t like waiting more than 15 minutes. Many prefer to spend more time being seen than waiting in the waiting room/exam room.
You should not just take your patient’s word for it, you should have a good idea on your performance. One easy way to do this is to periodically track the patient flow in your office. You do this by recording the actual appointment time, the patient’s arrival, when the patient is placed in an exam room and the actual time the patient spends with the physician. If you track patients in this way for a week, noting the causes for delays, you will have a data supported picture of how much time the patient spends and where. After you have tracked, determined the average. If it is too high, you need to take some corrective action.
If you have too much waiting time for the patient, look at your scheduling habits. Are you scheduling your appointments with enough margin? Are you scheduling enough time for certain appointment types?
Make sure the time you spend with your patient is meaningful. Patients prefer that providers make eye contact with them versus their chart. Use their name to add warmth and help them feel connected to you. Try to answer all of your patient’s questions and do this without resting your hand on the door knob or looking at your watch. A good tactic is to conclude by asking your patient if they have any additional questions – they feel some closure to the visit and are less likely to feel rushed. Those un-asked questions often turn into phone calls which take more time and energy from your office to answer so best to do it at the visit.
One other very important tactic is to follow-up on questions/labs/phone inquiries rapidly. Your office’s responsiveness will go a long way in enhancing the patient experience. If they believe they will receive a returned call by day’s end as a routine, you will help them feel confident in their relationship. Instruct your staff to indicate when a returned call will take place helping to set the patient’s expectations. If the physician is booked with patients for the entire day, it is important to communicate that the returned call won’t come until early evening. If the call is requesting lab or test results, help the caller understand that the practice waits for the results and when the results are likely to be made available. Again, help your staff to remember that patients might be anxious waiting for information and need careful and patient handling.
Whether providing information, responding to questions or facilitating visits, keep your perspective tuned toward the patient. Your sensitivity will help you maintain good relations with your patients and within the community.
Tags: patient experience, physician practice marketinig, practice habits, word-of-mouth
