Ask most medical practices about competitive advantage and they’ll likely highlight state-of-the-art facilities, top clinical talent, and advanced treatments. Yet one powerful differentiator often gets overlooked – patient engagement. Research shows practices able to fully engage patients enjoy increased retention, referrals, loyalty, and ultimately revenues.
Simplify Scheduling
Convoluted scheduling drives patients away. Make booking appointments effortless through user-friendly online self-scheduling with appointment reminders, expanded hours like evenings and weekends to fit around work, walk-in slots for flexibility with acute needs, and centralized scheduling across all providers and facilities. Convenient booking options cater to patients’ busy lifestyles.
Reduce Wait Times
Long delays in the waiting room try patience. Streamline the process by texting when exam rooms are ready instead of shouting names, staggering patient arrival times to prevent bottlenecking, monitoring, and optimizing clinic workflow to identify latencies, and providing mobile check-in to start paperwork before arriving. Minimizing wait times shows respect for patients’ time.
Share the Care Plan
Patients understand their health better when they know the care plan. Walk through test orders and pending results and what they mean, explain medication purpose, proper usage, and potential side effects, send post-visit summaries outlining care steps discussed, and provide patient education handouts explaining diagnoses and treatments. An informed patient is an empowered and engaged patient.
Facilitate Communication
Make contacting the care team easy through an online patient portal for messaging providers, access to a medical answering service for after-hours questions, provider cell phone numbers given for urgent needs, and email and text options for non-urgent follow up. The good folk at Apello say that readily available communication prevents gaps between visits.
Simplify Billing
Billing challenges undermine engagement. Improve the process through insurance eligibility verification ahead of visits, cost of care estimates provided upfront, online bill pay through the patient portal, and automated payment plan options for larger balances. Billing transparency and simplicity reduces financial headaches.
Surprise medical bills erode satisfaction quickly. Verify active insurance and details upfront to prevent unexpected costs. Give reasonable fee estimates for uninsured patients considering elective services. Allow payments through the patient portal to view balances and payment history. Systematically offer payment plan options for extensive treatment plans. Straightforward billing shows your financial integrity.
Seek Patient Feedback
Solicit input through post-visit surveys on scheduling, wait times, staff, and overall satisfaction, monitoring online ratings and reviews with follow up on concerns, identifying patient experience measures for proactive optimization, and an advisory panel for sharing ideas and improvement feedback. Patient insights drive meaningful improvements.
Offer Incentives
Encourage engagement through rewards programs for accessing the patient portal or submitting reviews, discounts for prompt payments or paperless billing enrollment, loyalty benefits for repeat visits and referrals, and wellness incentives like gift cards for screening compliance. Perks incentivize actions advancing patient engagement.
Personalize Interactions
Use each interaction to strengthen connections through warm greetings using the patient’s name, recalling personal details like family, interests, or occupation, asking thoughtful questions to learn patient priorities and concerns, and truly listening without distractions to identify unspoken needs. Individualized interactions build rapport and trust.
Demonstrate Appreciation
Show gratitude for choosing your practice by sending thank you cards or small gifts after visits, acknowledging patient referrals or positive reviews, celebrating loyalty milestones and anniversaries, and promoting patient stories and spotlights. Sincere appreciation enhances retention and satisfaction.
Conclusion
Patient engagement sits at the heart of delivering an exceptional healthcare experience. While new technologies and treatments get the spotlight, optimizing how patients interact with your practice holds tremendous influence as well. Making engagement an operational priority on par with clinical excellence means you gain an invaluable advantage.