Positive patient-provider relationships are the lifeblood of every medical practice. Research indicates that they lead to better outcomes and higher patient satisfaction. However, many practice owners struggle to determine their patients’ current levels of satisfaction. These insights are critical to addressing any gaps in care and mitigating risk. Likewise, administrative tasks can get in the way of fostering strong relationships.
Let’s take a look at how you can get a pulse on the current state of your patient-provider relationships and increase satisfaction rates.
Leverage Post-Appointment Surveys
From patient portals to text message reminders, diversified and layered communication tools have become an integrated part of a wider cultural shift to patient-centered care. Healthcare providers make use of multiple touchpoints to engage with patients and foster strong relationships.
The next step in using these strategies is to measure their effectiveness. Understanding your patients’ current levels of satisfaction will allow you to mitigate the risk of medical malpractice suits or any other consequences from dissatisfied patients. And gives you a heads up about issues that need to be addressed.
Post-appointment surveys are a popular and effective way to gather data about patient satisfaction. A quick, three- to five-question survey can be sent out to patients via text or email within 24 to 48 hours of a visit to your practice. Some potential questions to include are:
- How easy was it to schedule an appointment with our facility? (Rate on a scale of 1 to 5)
- How satisfied are you with the level of care you received from your provider? (Rate on a scale of 1 to 5)
- Were all of your concerns addressed in today’s appointment? (Yes or no with room for comments)
- How likely are you to recommend our practice to a friend or family member? (Rate on a scale of 1 to 5)
Be sure to follow up on any patient concerns or questions. You may consider tweaking and optimizing survey questions to determine the effectiveness of any patient-facing changes you make to your practice.
Stop Billing Mistakes Before They Cost You
There’s no way around it: medical billing is complicated. From superbills to coding cycles, practices of all sizes juggle numerous administrative tasks to receive payment. Patients lose trust in their medical practice’s ability to provide quality care when dealing with administrative errors that result in claim denials.
Reducing manual entries and implementing automated workflows can help avoid billing errors, reducing the risk of malpractice claims. For example, integrated features such as claims scrubbing automatically detect and resolve billing code errors. Combined with alerts, tracking, and secondary claims submissions, this feature is a powerful tool for increasing cash-flow, productivity, and patient satisfaction.
Remove Barriers to Patient Scheduling
Long wait times and difficulty scheduling an appointment are major determinants to patient satisfaction. They’re also costly, resulting in an $89 billion opportunity cost to healthcare organizations each year when combined with travel time.
As with provider communication, patients have come to expect instant access to records, billing information, and scheduling tools from just about anywhere. Medical practices can reduce the hurdles to scheduling appointments by putting patients in the driver’s seat.
With integrated practice management software, patients can enjoy the convenience of scheduling and managing their healthcare on the go. In turn, practice owners and staff are able to drive efficiency by documenting visits, submitting claims, billing, and creating reports before the patient even leaves the office. The internal and external-facing elements work
together to create a more streamlined, personalized experience for patients. At RXNT, we’re proud to offer solutions focused on improving patient-provider relationships through convenience, efficiency, and innovation. To explore how our proprietary tools can streamline your practice, get a no-pressure, virtual demo.