The healthcare industry underwent rapid changes over the past two years in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic has drastically changed patient care and patient expectations. To manage these expectations and deliver a stellar patient experience, healthcare institutes and medical practitioners need to streamline their patient interactions.
Why is patient experience necessary for your business?
Today, healthcare organizations aim to achieve financial objectives while improving patient satisfaction and experience. As a result, patient experience has become a key differentiator for healthcare business success. Patients with excellent experience are highly likely to return and recommend your healthcare organization to others. However, if the patients are unhappy with your service, they will switch to your competitor and post negative feedback about your organization on various social media platforms. On the other hand, satisfied patients will remain loyal to your brand, which will help increase your revenue and profitability. So, patient satisfaction and a positive patient experience are the keys to improving your brand reputation.
Studies show that:
51% of patients would change their healthcare provider for excellent customer service. This statistic alone shows how important it is to ensure a better patient experience with stellar customer service or patient service. The time has come to take such data into account and start acting upon them.
Are you yet to focus on improving patient experience? In that case, it is high time to do so before a simple incident of poor patient experience leads to patient attrition, loss of revenue, and diminishing brand reputation. Outsourcing some of your crucial patient care and engagement services to a healthcare call center can help deliver better patient experience and patient satisfaction.
Improve communication with patients:
Communication is the key to an excellent patient experience. When your healthcare call center partner answers calls with enthusiasm and answers all their queries, it improves patient satisfaction. Prompt customer service and first-contact resolution always enhance patient experience and turn them into brand loyalists.
1. Improve communication with patients:
Communication is the key to an excellent patient experience. When your healthcare call center partner answers calls with enthusiasm and answers all their queries, it improves patient satisfaction. Prompt customer service and first-contact resolution always enhance patient experience and turn them into brand loyalists.
2. Optimize the appointment process:
Establishing a well-managed appointment scheduling system is another way to deliver a better patient experience. Offering an appointment-setting service during and after business hours using your healthcare call center partner can help your business cater to more patients and offer a better patient experience at the same time. In this digital age, you can also provide online appointment setting functionality to satisfy those patients who prefer self-service.
3. Offer Appointment reminder:
Patients often forget their medical appointments, resulting in lost productivity for your organization. Therefore, please remind them of their scheduled appointments and reschedule them if they fail to appear. With a reminder service from a reputable call center for healthcare providers, you can offer timely reminders and appointment rescheduling to your patients, making their care experience hassle-free.
4. Be prompt in answering phone calls:
The golden rule of any healthcare call center is to keep patients on hold for no more than 30 seconds and to transfer calls only when necessary. You should also return phone calls and emails within a standard time frame. Hiring a healthcare BPO can help ensure all phone calls are answered promptly. If you return the call or respond to an email, you should also establish a clear timeframe for responding. Doing so can significantly enhance the patient experience.
5. Simplify the billing process:
When you simplify your healthcare billing process, it becomes easier for patients to pay the bills. When your healthcare outsourcing partner can provide an accurate estimate of the bill and explain its components to the patient, it improves transparency and patient satisfaction. And when your patients are satisfied, they are much more likely to pay your bills on time.
6. Establish a process to get feedback:
One of the most frustrating situations patients can face is having a bad experience but never getting to vent concerns. Without the patient’s feedback, your organization will assume everything is fine while the patient searches for a new healthcare provider. According to studies, 55 percent of patients who had a bad experience but received a satisfactory resolution returned to the same healthcare provider. You must continue to solicit feedback and give your patients the opportunity to voice their concerns after care. With the right outsourcing partner, you can efficiently conduct a post-care patient survey and gather valuable patient insights, which you can incorporate into your healthcare operations to improve patient care.
7. Find ways to follow up with patients:
Receiving generic wellness plans would strengthen many patients’ bonds with their healthcare providers. While you can’t act as patients’ daily health coaches, you can engage them by sending generic health materials between appointments. Doing so will improve patient engagement, make your patients feel valued, and improve their satisfaction and experience.
8. Protect Patient information:
In this age, data protection is a prerequisite for every industry. This is especially true for the healthcare industry, where healthcare organizations are responsible for protecting their patients’ health information at all costs. Failing to do so can result in significant fines under HIPAA. However, with a HIPAA-compliant healthcare call center partner, you can protect your patients’ health information and deliver a stellar experience.
Patients today expect excellent customer service, quick information, and fast issue resolution from their healthcare provider. Therefore, to meet that expectation and deliver a superior patient experience, you need to partner with a HIPAA-compliant healthcare call center that combines technology with the human touch—a winning formula for patient loyalty.
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