In previous posts, we’ve discussed polling your patient base via an e-mailed or in-office survey to gauge how they feel about important aspects of your practice. That feedback can then help guide your future decision-making to provide the best possible patient experience.
In our practices in Spain and Mexico, we recently surveyed a fair number of patients in anticipation of managers’ meetings in each country. So that you can combine with your own surveys or get a feel for what patients are saying, here are some key findings that may apply in your own case.
At this point, just before the jump, I’d love to throw a little linkbait at you by telling you that the results are absolutely SHOCKING, but they aren’t.
Patients do not like to wait
Of all the things that were “hot button” issues for our patients, wait times topped the list in just about every survey variation and patient grouping. This happens in a couple of ways. First, people do not like to wait to make an appointment. We had some offices in which a patient had to wait an average of 7 days for a new patient appointment (which is not bad for a mature office) and STILL scored very low in terms of wait for a new patient appointment. Of all the topics discussed here, wait time from call to appointment has been prominent and it pops up again here.
Second, folks do not like to sit around in a waiting room, especially when they arrive on time for the appointment. Even in wifi-enabled offices that allow patients to easily check e-mails and Facebook pages, no one likes to sit around and wait.
This certainly fits with the now generation, immediate satisfaction economy in which we currently operate. There are hundreds of blog posts dedicated to unhappiness with waiting an extra 5 minutes for a burrito at Chipotle and so it would seem to follow that waiting is high on the list of patient unhappiness.
Sometimes, waiting is unavoidable. Practices are busy and you certainly want to take care of those who got in line first. But, you can certainly take steps to reduce wait times or improve the comfort of your patients. We’ve discussed wait times from the call to the consultation in this post, and we’ll address waiting room wait times in our next post.
Be nice
Our survey left an area for open comments and while most comments were very favorable, when negative comments did surface, most of them focused on someone the patient found to be unpleasant. Interestingly, in virtually every case, there was no challenging situation – a dispute over a bill, treatment taking longer than expected – that prompted the comment (as far as we could tell).
Of course, there are certain duties that allow for, or even require, something less than a flowery disposition. Collecting money from insurance companies, working out a price discrepancy with vendors or negotiating better pricing from those vendors all come to mind. But when it comes to patient interaction, there should be a smile and pleasant exchanges. How do you know when not to be nice? Well, to borrow from the cinematic classic, Road House, a good manager will decide when it is time not to be nice.
And by all means, under no circumstances, should someone’s bad day be put on to the patients. Check your baggage at the door. If Drew Brees said that he threw 4 interceptions in a game because the kids weren’t behaving and his wife was mad at him for putting regular garbage in the recycling, no one would be patting him on the back saying “that’s OK.”
Price matters
If you’ve read the backstory of the My Practice Engine, you know that throughout the history of the practice with which we work, we have been extremely price competitive. That hasn’t changed and a number of patients still commented on how expensive our services are. As much as we love cutting fees, we can only cut them so much.
In practices that are in the upper end of the fee range or charging for consultations, imagine the numbers of patients you might be losing. Again, that is not a bad thing as long as the patients you are losing aren’t so many that it materially impacts results (for more, see price elasticity of demand).
Bart Palmisano is manager for Orthodontic Centers of Europe and OCA Mexico and a former executive at Orthodontic Centers of America, Inc., which at its pinnacle, serviced over 800 orthodontic offices. Please contact him here.
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