Taking the patient experience to a new level

In previous blog posts, we’ve stressed the importance of everyone in the office simply being nice.  Don’t have your head down in a schedule book, computer or mobile device.  Smile.  Offer a friendly greeting.

Now, being nice and friendly, is relatively basic and simple, but how can you take that to the next level and be more personal with your patients?  More importantly, how can you separate yourself from your competition?  Everyone does birthday cards and anyone can script a greeting for patients walking in the door.  What makes you special?

Dale Carnegie taught us (or at least a lot of us) that everyone’s favorite topic is themselves.  So, go straight for that angle.  Here are some more specific tips:

Do you know what your patients are thinking?

To introduce today’s discussion, a story for you (some names and irrelevant facts have been changed to protect the innocent).  Some time ago, I visited a dental office for a cleaning.  The service there was less than spectacular.  To be more specific, it was terrible.  I waited at the front desk a good 5 minutes before being acknowledged by the front desk manager (apparently, there was a new LeBron meme that could not be missed).  Upon being acknowledged, I was greeted with all the enthusiasm of someone who wanted to anywhere else than in front of a paying patient. 

After an interminable wait, I was taken to the clinical area by another person not in the mood to be at work.  Not rude, mind you, but just a tone of communication that conveyed something between boredom and “when it is quitting time?”  By contrast, the doctor was extremely friendly, helpful and, to the best of my knowledge, very technically skilled.  But before getting to that person, I had to wade through a phalanx of folks who simply did not care about the happiness of the patient.

Some time later, the dentist, struggling with growth, asked me for some help.  One of the first questions that I asked was, “What do you think of the way your staff treats patients?”  Her response was, “We do very well in that area.”  Now, the visit I made may have come on a bad day, but follow up discussions confirmed that there were lots of bad days around there.

To share or not to share

One of the most frequent questions I get from owner doctors relates to whether or not critical information should be shared with staff.  The argument usually goes something along the lines of the following: “If I show my income statement to my office manager – who is making $20 per hour—and they see that the net profit in the practice is $250,000, they’ll wonder why I am making $250,000 per year while they are making $40,000.  I’ll either get constant requests for a raise or I’ll have to replace my office manager.”  

On the other hand, you can’t expect a manager or key person to make important decisions for your practice while flying blind.  If you ask a person to handle your purchasing, you cannot reasonably expect a person to buy supplies without knowing the budget, historical spending or important product costs.  If you make decisions without information, you’re pretty much asking for bad decisions.  Also, if you are too guarded with information, the people in the office may think you are hiding something shady.  

Here are some guidelines for information sharing: