Patients’ satisfaction is one of the most important things that can increase or decrease your medical practice’s reputation. Right from over-the-phone appointments, patient check-ins to the interaction of your staff with the patients – all of this can help in your practice’s referral rates. Goes without saying that patients who feel they have been looked after well are more likely to refer your medical practice to other patients. Here are some of the best ways to improve customer service for your medical practice.
Building trust with your patients can help improve customer service for your medical practice.
Provide Appointments Online And Over-The-Phone
It is generally the receptionist’s job to manage appointments as they are the point of contact between you and the patient. Your medical receptionist may not always be able to answer calls all the time as they can work only for a certain period of time everyday. So, it’s best if you provide appointments over the phone, but hire two or more receptionists and make them work on rotating shifts. This will ensure that your patients’ calls for appointments are answered always.
Along with over-the-phone appointments, you can also provide appointments online. First of all, it’ll save you a lot of time and make the patient scheduling process more organized and easier. The best thing you can do is create your own medical practice website. This is important if you want to improve your customer service and cater to your patients’ needs.
Make Sure Your Staff Communicates Effectively
Your medical practice will have many other employees like receptionists, nurses, technicians, cashiers, etc. Since all your employees come in face-to-face contact with your patients, it’s important that you hire experienced and trained people.
As a doctor, you need to take up the initiative to coordinate with your employees and create a hospitable and safe environment for your patients. You and your employees need to be kind and empathetic with your patients. If you want to establish a good relationship with your patients, it’s important that you and your employees attend to your patients on time and treat them with kindness, empathy, and respect.
Listen To Your Patients
When patients visit your medical practice, they need to feel that you value their health. That’s why, as a doctor, it’s important that you listen to your patients. You can call them by their name and make them feel comfortable. One of the most common mistakes to avoid when starting a medical practice is making your patients wait for a long time in the waiting room.
You need to be punctual when you attend to your patients. In case there’s any delay in an appointment, make sure to inform your patients and also apologize for it. When your patients are sitting in the waiting room, make sure that your staff treats them with patience and respect. To improve the quality of treatment given to your patients, you can avail the benefits of modern medical gadgets. Remember that your doctor-patient relationship is one of the most important things that will affect your patients’ experience at your practice.
Ask For Feedback From Your Patients
If you’re keen on improving your customer service, there’s nothing better than asking for feedback from your patients. It’s not always possible to satisfy every patient who visits your medical practice. But, that doesn’t mean that you can’t take steps to improve your quality of work. You can coordinate with your staff and create a customer service protocol that’ll help you improve your customer service.
Your patients will feel valued and respected if their complaints and opinions are respected. Also, taking the effort to get feedback from your patients will make them aware of the fact that you and your staff are keen on improving your service. You can create a survey or a questionnaire on your medical practice website in order to get data from your patients. This data will help you understand what all things can be improved in your practice and thereby improve your patient experience.
Make Follow-Up Calls
When a patient comes and visits you for the second time, it’s an indication that they like your service. If you want to strengthen this doctor-patient relationship, you need to remember your patients and why they come to consult you. You can ask your staff members to make follow-up calls to find out how your patients are doing.
It’s also a great way to reduce your patients’ anxiety about their health problems. Additionally, it also helps to increase their compliance in following your treatment. This will help you reduce patient no-shows at your medical practice. Don’t forget that follow-up calls make your patients feel that you care for them and they are more likely to refer you to their friends and family members. When you ask your staff members to make follow-up calls, encourage them to remember their names, especially of patients who consult you frequently.
One of the ways to improve customer service for your medical practice is to have good communication with your patients.
Conclusion
As a doctor, you certainly would want your patients to get good quality customer service that would make them want to visit you again. There are many other things you can do like having systematic medical billing, ensuring patient data privacy, marketing your medical practice, etc to improve your customer service. You can use our ImmunifyMe app to keep track of your appointments and improve your practitioner-patient relationship.
FAQs On Ways To Improve Customer Service For Your Medical Practice
How Do You Provide Outstanding Customer Service In Healthcare?
You can provide outstanding customer service in healthcare by doing the following:
- Use modern medical gadgets
- Provide over-the-phone and online services for scheduling appointments
- Make the check-in and check-out process easy
- Hire experienced and trained staff
- Ensure follow-ups
How Can Excellent Customer Service Be Improved?
You can improve your medical practice’s customer service by doing the following:
- Create a safe and comfortable environment for your patients
- Ensure your patients’ data privacy
- Coordinate with your staff members and encourage them to do better at their job
- Be punctual for your patient visits and appointments
- Go digital with scheduling the appointments
- Make follow-up calls to your patients
How Can Healthcare Professionals Provide Quality Customer Service?
Healthcare professionals can provide quality customer service in the following ways:
- Provide appointments online and over-the-phone
- Make sure your staff communicates effectively
- Listen to your patients
- Ask for feedback from your patients
- Make follow-up calls
What Are Some Examples Of Good Customer Service?
One of the best examples of good customer service is when doctors and staff members remember the names of their patients and treat them with kindness and respect. Apart from that, easy scheduling of appointments, taking customer feedback, and giving follow-up calls to patients are other examples of good customer service.