7 Ways of Enhancing Patient Satisfaction

There are plenty of studies that show that patients who receive appropriate counseling, instructions, treatment, good care, and an overall satisfying experience, mostly respond to the treatment positively and hence, experience better medical outcomes. What the providers of healthcare need to remember is that all positive experiences could add to patient satisfaction, hence, leading to the excellent performance of the hospital or its facility. Hence, if you aren’t ready to take an extra step towards going the extra mile to make sure of setting up an adequate patient feedback app to ensure patient satisfaction, you may just lose out on your existing also potential patients.

Begin measuring your patient satisfaction with patient feedback software

Satisfied patients are highly loyal and would also recommend you also your faculty to others in those areas where marketing through word-of-mouth could do wonders. However, how would ensure the satisfaction of patients and earn their loyalty? There are some tested methods given below:

1. Improve your communication

Good communication within a healthcare facility would entail excellent interaction with all from the front desk to your medical expert. Communication plays a vital role in the hospital-patient relationships in your center. Therefore, each staff also the medical fraternity must keep in mind how they interact also educate their patients. Using an adequate and professionally sound patient feedback system is the key to having this in sound condition. The main thing is having patients involved in their personal care and keeping them updated regarding the progress at all possible junctures.

Check the following tips towards improving patient communication

• Provide direct and clear information and instructions throughout the procedure from appointment to the process of treatment.
• Be attentive and answer every question they could have towards treatment, options on payment, medical assessments, prescriptions, etc.
• Build a positive ambiance by initiating interactions also offering proactive assistance.

2. Take time and educate patients

A recent study has revealed that patients felt they were rushed and not quite satisfied during their appointments as doctors spent lesser time with them than was required or expected. It comes as a general perception of the patients that in times when physicians do not find time to communicate and educate the patients, they don’t receive conducive and required health solutions. This kind of lacking patient engagement could also affect medical outcomes since the patients do not feel good and satisfied and may be less inclined to adhere to the instructions in treatment.

Hence, ensure that you are spending more time with the patients and explain the reason plus treatment for the kind of illness in a detailed manner. Patients would feel more responsible and hence connect if they are provided the power of deciding their own course of treatment. Before you have prescribed medication or picked up a method of treatment, do take the opinions plus suggestions of your patients.

3. Train your staff to handle queries of patients

Patients could come up with several questions in the entire relationship they carry with your center. For instance, they might require understanding how they can use their health insurance or have a question regarding their diet at your medical care. This is the main reason why it is vital that you train staff on the modes of answering questions and assisting the patients along with their families in different situations. Along with effective medical attention, helpful plus friendly staff would bring the gap closer between patient satisfaction and experience.

4. Make your care transparent

Mostly, patients identify certain charges at the billing end that leave them utterly bewildered as they hadn’t anticipated those. Or many times they could experience some side effects during their course of treatment they weren’t informed earlier. Events such as these could leave a negative impact on the patients forcing them to pick other options. So, in order to avoid that, make your priority in healthcare provision being transparent. Certain tips:

• Communicate clearly all the charges even the hidden ones before you begin treatment so that your patients aren’t surprised.
• Give your patients guides to treatments or brochures so they could read about the same and its side effects in detail before making any decisions.
• Respect the time of the patient and communicate well in advance any kinds of delays in appointments or consultations so you don’t have to make them wait.

5. Show them the payment plans

As the patients are required to pay a huge chunk out of their pockets, mostly all of them could expect a certain kind of flexibility. With payment plans, you are offering the patients the flexibility by breaking down the complete bill into part payments that they could easily handle. This enables the patients to look for medical care that they need without worrying about the financial aspect. A planning strategy to help the patients make payments that are flexible would not just improve patient satisfaction but would also provide you an edge over all your competitors.

6. Use the latest technology

The technology could improve the medical processes and at the same time improve the ease of patient. For instance, if a patient loses their prescription or medical records, the hospital staff could use the cloud platform medical software to pull it up with mere information like the patient’s phone number.

With proper tools and software, you could optimize several processes along the same time saving patients’ effort and time. Also, patients at this time want to have more involvement in the treatments and stay updated at every step. To make sure that is catered, certain things you could engage in:

1. Get online: 67 percent of the patients say that they would prefer a medical provider that gives them text and email reminders for the appointments and the follow-up care. Therefore, you could invest in an automated tool that sends email messages and texts that would take over the task without much requirement of human intervention.
2. Automation investment: 70 percent of the patients say that they would prefer one medical provider that sends email intimation and text messages that would take over this work without much of a significant need for human intervention.

7. 7. Conduct surveys on patient satisfaction

Different patients could come with different expectations from your facility. For instance, some patients could prefer flexible plans in their payments while it could be no concern for some. Some patients could need early discharge while some could feel that they are being unnecessarily rushed. This is the point where you could use the patient feedback apps.

Hence, in order to find out what exactly is the need of your patients, seek direct queries. Patient satisfaction survey software is among the most effective tools for collecting feedback. It could enable you to highlight all the areas that need improvement and work on those until you have met the expectations of the patients. Check some of the tips for effective patient strategy.

1. Collect your feedback at several touchpoints, like the front desk, billing desk, visitor’s lounge, after discharge, and so on.
2. To receive the most appropriate and accurate feedback, create groups, like the admitted patients, their families, outpatients, and so on.
3. Collect on-station feedback to gather insights in real-time.
4. Correct all your actions and close the feedback loop by informing your patients regarding the actions you took.

piHappiness feedback patient satisfaction software

To realize what drives the satisfaction of your patients at your facility, it is highly recommended that you understand patient experience and expectations. And our patient feedback software is designed to perform the task exactly. Here is how you could help yourself tremendously with patient feedback apps:

• It would allow you to share all kinds of surveys through several channels, like emails, SMSs, mobile applications, mobile phones, kiosks, weblinks, websites, QR codes, and live chat.
• It measures patient satisfaction across many metrics, including customer satisfaction (CSAT) and customer loyalty (NPS).
• The tool would enable you to derive insightful data on patients, make actions that can correct, and close your feedback loop.
• It would offer ready-to-use also customizable templates that you could use in creating the most interactive and attractive surveys on patients.
• It also allows branding and personalization of surveys.

PiHappiness’s latest plus the most intelligent features have been designed particularly to help you create logical plus attractive surveys plus collect the patient feedback in the maximum effective manner.