Customer Service Not just for retail business

by Shellie Pruden, DCMS director of medical practice relations

The physician-patient relationship is considered sacred in the practice of medicine. That relationship is in serious jeopardy. With direct attacks from insurance companies, government, and employers seeking cost controls, physicians must strengthen their efforts to protect that relationship. One of the most effective ways is to improve customer service.

Although many physicians fight it, medicine is a business and business must continually adapt to survive. Society has come to expect, even demand, exemplary customer service. It’s time to ask yourself the question that corporate America has addressed for decades: How does your customer service measure up?

Customer service begins long before a patient comes face to face with you. If your staff creates too many access barriers or treats patients rudely, you may never have the chance to create a patient relationship. Your patients never should feel like a herd of cattle being pushed toward a chute to be doctored. For those who haven’t witnessed the process of doctoring cattle, “personal” and “congenial” aren’t adjectives used to describe it.

Physicians have many ways to measure customer satisfaction. Satisfaction surveys are important feedback tools and should be standard procedure in a practice. You can get a fairly accurate sampling by sending a survey to a week’s worth of patients a couple of times a year. Many templates are available on the Internet or you can request samples from TMA Physician Services (www.physician.services@texmed.org or 800-523-8776). Some practices use a secret shopper concept to monitor how a patient perceives a practice. However you approach it, remember that the front desk staff is the first impression for every patient. If your staff understands how important customer service is to you, patients are far more likely to be treated with courtesy and respect.

Significant to patient satisfaction is timeliness. In any industry, it’s unacceptable for the executive to be late to a meeting or to keep clients waiting. Yet, it seems standard practice for physicians to keep patients waiting. A physician who is 10 minutes late when a schedule is running behind is understandable and forgivable. A physician who consistently walks into the office an hour after patients were scheduled is not. The excuse of an emergency is acceptable only if patients are kept well informed and given the courtesy of rescheduling. An appointment is an agreement between you and the patient. If you are unable to keep that agreement within a 10- to 15-minute deadline, you are communicating to a patient that you don’t respect their time. Many physician offices use archaic scheduling practices that easily can be brought into the new millennium. Scheduling programs are unique to a practice because so many variables must be considered, such as practice size, specialty, and use of medical assistants, nurses, and physician extenders. No program will be successful, however, unless a physician adheres to the schedule out of courtesy and respect for all patients.

Exemplary patient satisfaction will become a standard rather than a goal in the next few years. Information about your practice will be available for anyone to peruse over the Internet. Insurance companies have begun to compile patient satisfaction data to share with employers and your patients. The patient who currently fights to protect the physician-patient relationship won’t bother, if physicians don’t improve customer service.