Increasing Patient Satisfaction - The Ultimate Guide.

Everyone wants to understand how to do their job better, more so those of us in the service industry. We want to make sure that our clients have everything they need and want. Same goes with healthcare, doctors, medical professionals and practitioners, holistic healers, all want to satisfy their patients in every possible way, as healing is the backbone of life. Here are a few tips to use to increase patient satisfaction.

Smile and Say Hello

This one should be the most obvious one. The receptionists at the clinic should smile and greet the patients as soon as they enter the clinic. No one likes to be ignored. Patients should be acknowledged once they are in your clinic in a very friendly manner. This is probably the easiest way to enhance patient satisfaction, yet so many clinics in Qatar don’t follow this protocol. In many situations patients come to find themselves in the clinic, waiting to be attended by the receptionist but he/she is busy with someone on the phone. In worse situations there is no one at the reception at all!

Answer the phone in 3 rings or less

On Meddy’s Website we have a live chat support where we allow visitors to ask for help on the website to  find the right information about a doctor or clinic. We also get to hear lots of complaints about clinics. One of the most popular ones is “No one is answering my call!” Users would frequently complain that they’ve been calling a particular clinic for a while and no one is answering their call. It’s extremely frustrating for patients to go through this considering the fact that most of the time patients call a clinic is because they are suffering from pain or discomfort and need some immediate attention.

Appointment Reminders

Remind your patients of their appointments at least 24 hours prior to their scheduled appointment. You can send them an sms or call them. Patients would certainly appreciate a reminder and it will help reduce patient “no shows” at your clinic.

Allow Patients to talk with doctors on the phone

Patients usually have some concerns about their medications or overall health after their consultation with the doctor. For that they would like to briefly talk with the doctor to flesh out their questions. Ideally, after the consultation doctors should provide their direct contact number/email to patients in case they would like to ask anything. If they cannot do that, they should allow patients to call the clinic and the receptionist should connect them with the doctor directly. Unfortunately, quite a few clinics don’t do either of those and indirectly force patients to come for another consultation with the doctor.

Have Insurance Claim Forms

Quite a few insurance providers don’t provide direct billing to the clinic and require patients to use a claim form that needs to be signed by their physician. Make it convenient for patients by having copies of claim forms from different insurance providers available at the clinic, instead of asking patients to bring one.

Call the Patient for Test Results & Insurance Approvals

Have your receptionist call the patient when their test results are out and when you get an approval/disapproval from their insurance provider for a treatment. This makes it very convenient for patients not having to call the clinic multiple times to check if their test results are out, or if their insurance will be cove