8 Ways To Improve Patient Satisfaction Through Efficient Call Handling

Patient satisfaction reflects patients’ expectations and perceptions of the quality of care they have received. It provides a way to evaluate quality improvement efforts that the facility is making to make good care more patient-centered and effective, and it generally improves the public reputation of the healthcare facility.

In this article, we’ll explain 8 ways to improve patient engagement and satisfaction.

So, let’s dig in.

But first, let’s understand what patient satisfaction means to a facility and why it is so important for success in healthcare.

Patient satisfaction not only assists healthcare providers in determining how well they’ve accomplished their mission but also allows administrators to gauge the quality of patient experience, patient retention, and, therefore, reimbursement, which are all core drivers of a successful facility.

Patient experience vs. Patient satisfaction

The core difference between patient experience and patient satisfaction: Although many healthcare organizations believe that when they hear about improving patient feedback, it is considered in regard to the patient’s experience or their satisfaction levels; however, these are two very different aspects of what a given patient feedback reveals.

Caring experience is the care a patient receives, and satisfaction is whether or not the care that was expected by a patient was delivered. What this means is that the satisfaction score of a patient is, in effect, dictated by what they expect healthcare delivery to be like.

According to Business Wire, 30% of patients say they have walked out of a health appointment because the queue was too long.

How to perform a patient satisfaction survey

A quick way to conduct a patient satisfaction survey: The HCAHPS survey, or officially the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) survey, is designed to capture patient satisfaction data via an objective, standardized survey method. The HCAHPS survey also makes it possible to compare healthcare organizations since the survey is public and standardized.

8 Tips For Building Levels Of Patient Satisfaction

Be quick with follow-up actions.
In doing follow-ups, patient involvement becomes a priority, and the patient is given an opportunity to consider their interactions and the quality of care received. It also makes the patient ready to participate in his/her care plan, as well as build the much-needed rapport with the healthcare facility and plant the seeds of customer loyalty.

Stress communication at the provider-patient level.
Satisfaction ratings and HCAHPS scores can further be enhanced by better ways of communication between the provider and the patient. This balance means that while embracing technology through the use of communication gadgets, there should also be time spent with the patients in a direct conversation. While the application of Internet resources helps in frequent communication, it takes away the interpersonal touch between healthcare providers and recipients.

Find the time to build a rapport with the patient and address their concerns as to the medical treatment they received and other issues they have or may have in the future concerning this medical journey. This would help to a large extent in the improvement of the patient journey and, as a result, to the patient’s satisfaction.

Be transparent with patients.
Specifically, a health system that introduces efforts towards openness about the cost of treatment, the time that it will take to see a provider, and all other issues regarding the clinical process fosters trust in the patient-provider relationship and in the entire care team. When patients are certain that they will be told the truth on crucial individual issues, they also have trust in patient-oriented care. It also results in higher patient engagement ratings because this is a concrete encounter that the patient has with the healthcare system.

Prioritize short wait times.
Providing opportunities for appointment booking through the Internet and being as transparent as possible with the patients establishes reasonable expectations towards the wait time. Patients may relate delays with inefficiency and perceive that the institution poorly assessed it since it disregarded their time. While various health care settings, including emergency departments, are not able to accommodate wait times, it is possible to anticipate trying to minimize the amount of weight that can take place by guaranteeing that the available setting has enough workforce and scheduling systems.

Focus on having processes to explain treatment plans to patients.
If clients have a better understanding of the care they are offered and their roles in their healing process, they are not likely to be readmitted with the same complaints. Patient education also leads to higher levels of trust in the providers and the healthcare system, which results in better satisfaction among the patients. The part played by the patient in his/her care, when understood by him/her, makes him/her more willing to cooperate with providers to achieve the best health outcomes, a factor that defines patient satisfaction.

Evaluate patient satisfaction metrics using input from patients.
When data on the experience and satisfaction of the patients is collected by healthcare systems, the particular facility should consider some aspects of the quality of care that could benefit from quality improvement. Patient feedback has the prowess of revealing the least efficient and the most efficient hospital carnal flows and the possible ways that administrators can harness efficient functions from them. Although the idea of feedback is as simple as letting the patient feel that he or she belongs to the facility, it is essential for the facility to act on it.

Optimize the operations of the facility by adopting the use of health technology.
Health technology, including bar code medication administration, electronic patient portal, and CDS, eliminates medical mistakes and adds to efficiency. Patients benefit when providers decide to embrace what is referred to as health technology, which is used to minimize errors in healthcare. It gives patients an assurance that the facility is putting more resources in place to offer the best standard of care and a good flow of operations.

Enhance the facility environment and culture.
The organizational culture in a facility transcends every level of care, all the way from the administration to the staff and consumers. As we have seen above, when the company culture is poor, the patient feels like the care team members are not well coordinated or functioning at their best. Hence, patients will have a more efficient care team if the company has a great culture, leading to improved patient experience and satisfaction.

Conclusion

Patient experiences, as well as patient satisfaction, are not limited to the point of client and provider interaction but also involve the administrative and scheduling aspects of a healthcare system.

In addition, meeting critical safe staffing ratios at a facility or department will dramatically lower wait times and demonstrate to patients that the care team values their time. Patient-centered practices ensure that your patients feel confident and empowered to tell your providers everything about their life experiences so that you can deliver truly patient-centered care.