Consumer Satisfaction in Medical Practice

William Winston, Paul A Sommers

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781134753642
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

Consumer Satisfaction in Medical Practice will equip physicians and other decision makers in health care with the necessary tools to meet the growing demand for customers'satisfaction in medical practices. Addressing the deliverance of accurate and affective medical services, this intelligent guide provides you with proven techniques in order to provide competitive prices, convenience, accessibility, and quality outcomes to customers. Consumer Satisfaction in Medical Practice turns the delivery of health care toward the patient. Each recommendation will enable you to provide long-term and cost-effective benefits for customers and your company. Exposing common myths about medical practice, this knowledgeable book offers you a patient's perspective on the services they need and request to help you offer your customers the appropriate services. From Consumer Satisfaction in Medical Practice, you will be able to give customers the medical services they want with the help of proven methods and suggestions which include:

• remembering that office budgets, profits for practitioners, and financial strengths of progressive hospitals and physician service organizations exist to help offer better health services to customers
• creating a consumers'bill of rights that ensures patients that they are receiving the best possible care for their money, that every patient has a right to their own medical information, and that every patient has a right to express grievances
• sending out newsletters and announcements of staff changes and changes to office hours to improve physician services to patients
• incorporating consumer satisfaction in employee and physician performance evaluations and setting standards for consumer satisfaction
• measuring physician staff and employee satisfaction along with that of the patient and payer to improve provider conditions and consumer satisfaction
• increasing physician satisfaction by recognition through awards and an incentive systemFeaturing several charts, tables, and suggestion boxes, this guide contains effective steps that you can institute in order to offer excellent care to your customers. Consumer Satisfaction in Medical Practice allows you to expand and improve customer satisfaction for the benefit of your customers and your business.

PART I:

UNDERSTANDING CONSUMER SATISFACTION AS A WAY OF DOING BUSINESS

Chapter 1

Myths and Other Misunderstandings About Medical Practice

For physicians to thrive instead of just survive in the contemporary marketplace for health care, traditional approaches to medical practice will have to change. Like it or not, physicians are going to have to reexamine—and then discard—the following myths and outdated beliefs about what the practice of medicine is going to be like during the twenty-first century.

Myth #1: Solo Practitioners and Independent Practices Will Dominate the Practice of Medicine

With increasing frequency, independent physicians are going to find it advantageous to consider some form of affiliation with another physician, a group, or a consortium. Such affiliations will benefit independent physicians by helping them obtain malpractice insurance, negotiate with insurance companies and HMOs, share patients within defined specialties, and reduce duplicative overhead costs, including those associated with incorporating consumer satisfaction into the practice.

Myth #2: Medical Practice Will Remain an Entrepreneurial, Small Business

In the past, many medical practices functioned as entrepreneurial, small businesses, but that was before the government, the insurance industry, and other third-party payers declared the 1990s to be “the decade of containing physician costs,” much as the 1980s were a watershed for significant cost-containing changes in hospitals. Payers and regulators of health care are fed up with uncontrolled costs and are doing something about it by directing patients to medical practices that are both quality oriented and cost conscious. As a result, reimbursement will decrease for all physicians, which in turn will force practices to de-escalate their costs while keeping quality standards high. To hold down medical and administrative costs while enhancing revenues, physicians will need to think and act more collectively.

Myth #3: “Curing” Patients Is All That Is Needed For Consumers to Feel Satisfied

In the past, physicians had the luxury of practicing medicine without too much concern about how the service was perceived by the patient. In many cases, it was presumed that the patient was just grateful for whatever medicine or related care was received. Indeed, most people perceived service as something they received at a gas station, restaurant, or hotel, but not at a doctor’s office.

Times have changed. The medical practices of physicians who have no competition in their specialty in a particular geographic area may survive the changes forecast for the next ten years, but they will probably not thrive—unless those physicians make consumer satisfaction a way of doing business. Of course there will always be exceptions—”one of a kind” medical practices such as those doing organ transplants—but even those physicians will benefit (and so will their patients) if they put consumer-oriented services in place.

As a service industry, the practice of medicine is fast becoming as market-driven as travel, hotels, banking, and a myriad of other industries. Consumers expect high-quality service from all physicians. It is the predominant perception that sways consumers when evaluating physicians. A voluntary commitment to practice excellence in every aspect of care and service to their patients will distinguish the thriving provider from the competition.

Myth #4: Implementing a Consumer Satisfaction Program Takes Too Much Time and Money

Actually, it will be costly not to implement such a program, because patients will simply go elsewhere. The specific cost of a consumer satisfaction program depends upon how it is implemented— the number of personnel involved in surveying patients, for example, and how surveys will be conducted (by mail, telephone, focus groups, or a combination of these). Physicians whose practices are currently without noteworthy competition would be wise to become consumer oriented now, before the competition arrives. Doing it now will be less expensive than doing it while dueling with other physicians for patients.

Myth #5: Once a Physician Has Referred a Patient to Another Physician, He or She Will Continue to Refer Patients to That Physician

A physician who receives a referred patient from another physician should not expect to receive further referrals from that source. Thus, referring physicians need to be treated as consumers. After being provided with a high-quality consultation, the referred patient should be returned to the referring physician in a timely fashion, along with a clear, concise report aimed at making it easy for the referring physician to incorporate the information into his or her planning for that patient’s future health care needs. Physicians should call referring physicians a day or two after sending their report to see whether they have any questions or concerns.

Myth #6: Consumer Satisfaction Is More Important in Some Medical Settings Than in Others

Too often, less than satisfactory service is rationalized because of an erroneous belief that in some specific settings, meeting consumers’ high expectations for service is not very important. This is not true. Consumer satisfaction should be the goal of all medical practices, no matter where or under what circumstances the care is provided—whether inpatient or outpatient, for example, or in a hospital or a private practice. Physicians need to take the lead through voluntary commitment to consumer-oriented medical care, for it offers the greatest potential for attaining consumer satisfaction. Once physicians take the lead in establishing excellence in care and service, other medical support staff will follow

Myth #7: A Consumer Satisfaction Program Can Replace Risk Management and Quality Assurance Programs

Wrong. Through its emphasis on making patients and members of their families well-informed and active participants in their medical care, a consumer-oriented service can help minimize the risk of malpractice suits. It does not, however, take the place of a carefully- thought-out program of risk management or quality assurance.

Some medical professionals worry that asking consumers to respond to any kind of questions about their medical care, even ones related only to service, will only cause them to focus on what they did not like about the care, rather than on what they did like. Some even worry that this may lead to more malpractice lawsuits, as consumers begin to think that there must have been something wrong with the care, if the physician is quizzing them about it.

This concern is unmerited. For medical practices to stay competitive, they must find out what their patients do not like, as well as what they like. Only when problems have been clearly identified is it possible to design and implement modifications in service to correct them. The goal is to find out what is wrong, not just what is right. When consumers are convinced that their input is really valued and that the goal of gathering that input is to improve medical services, they will become willing participants.

Myth #8: Attaining Consumer Satisfaction Requires Only Simple “Smile Training” Techniques

Establishing a consumer-oriented approach to medical care requires more than superficial techniques. Physicians and staff alike must be voluntarily committed to establishing excellence and improving their relationship with consumers. They must learn how to become good listeners and how to make sure each patient’s needs are met. More often than not, these skills are not recognized as being important, even crucial, in the health care environment.

Yet they are. The St. Paul Fire and Marine Insurance Company has demonstrated that although about one of every hundred hospitalized patients could legally bring an action for negligence against their medical care provider for failing to act or for acting improperly, less than 10 percent of those actually do. Why? The company reported that the answer can be found in the relationships patients have with their health care providers. The more positive and satisfactory the patients perceived those relationships to be, the less likely they were to initiate a lawsuit.

Myth #9: Providing Consumer Satisfaction Is Outdated and Too Expensive

Although it has been talked about for some time, consumer satisfaction has yet to be fully integrated into modern health care practices as a way of doing business. Some physicians believe that they have enough to worry about—especially shrinking reimbursement from Medicare and other payer sources—without spending time and money developing consumer satisfaction programs for their practices.

By putting all their efforts into counteracting government-initiated cost-containment measures, however, physicians are often overlooking the bottom-line benefits of a consumer satisfaction program. Physicians do not have to go overboard to become service oriented. Large expenditures are not needed, either for development of the satisfaction surveys or for the purchase of systems to do the mailing, telephone calls, and collecting and analyzing of data.

What is most needed to become consumer oriented is a voluntary commitment—a commitment to begin thinking about the consumer first. Whether a consumer arrives at a medical facility as a result of a marketing campaign, an ad in the Yellow Pages, or a referral from another professional, the fact remains that the care and service he or she receives at the facility will determine whether he or she returns. Furthermore, each satisfied consumer will tell at least five other people, one of whom is quite likely also to choose to use the facility. Establishing excellence in care and service does not represent a line item expense. However, the degree to which excellence exists is perceived by the consumer at each and every encounter with the provider and support staff.

Chapter 2

Looking at Health Care from the Patient’s Perspective

Good health is perhaps one of the most primary desires among humans, along with food, sleep, sex, and the need to feel important. Healthful living has been idolized and sought from time immemorial. Kings, monarchs, and other luminaries have quested for perpetual life as far back in history as records have been kept. A belief in the importance of attaining and maintaining good health is almost universally shared by the world’s societies. Thus, it is not surprising that efforts toward public health have been financially supported by government-run social, educational, and health agencies and by hundreds, possibly thousands, of volunteer and lay organizations throughout the world.

Annually, billions of dollars are spent on programs to promote health care and related services. In most cases, the consumer has had little to say in the evaluation of those services. That is now changing. Given the current climate of spiraling medical costs and the intense discussions now underway about a national program of health insurance in the United States, the need to involve those who benefit from health care—consumers—in the evaluation process has become more evident. Yet, although the concept of asking consumers their opinions about the medical care delivery system is not new, it has not been addressed consistently by many health care providers.

So what must be done to ensure that patients are more satisfied with their health care service? To begin with, professionals need to start examining the services they provide, from the patient’s view-point. Take the office visit as an example. Only 10 percent of the time a patient spends at a doctor’s office is directly related to thecare sought. Most of the patient’s time is spent waiting, filling out forms, or moving from one station to another. The amount of time actually spent with a doctor or nurse—whether for a physical evaluation, undergoing a laboratory test, or being informed about options for treatment—is usually quite limited. Patients have basically resigned themselves to the fact that most trips to the doctor are a waste of time, except for the few minutes they spend with the doctor or nurse.

Because patients have, for the most part, quietly endured long waits at their doctors’ offices in the past, some practitioners have come to believe that it is now permissible to let patients sit in their waiting rooms well beyond their scheduled appointment times without even giving them an explanation for the delay. Consumers are becoming increasingly intolerant of such treatment. Indeed, clinicians who fail to give patients and their families appropriate consideration will soon find themselves losing many of their patients to their competitors. Shopping for medical services is now commonplace, and people will not hesitate to travel an extra fifty or seventy- five miles for satisfactory service.

In the fall of 1997, Allina Health System of Minneapolis, Minnesota surveyed the members of its managed care organization, Medica Health Plans, which had more than one million members. Allina wanted to know what its health plan members thought about the doctors, hospitals, quality of care and service, and the amount of choice each patient/health plan member really had. Greenberg Research, Inc. of Washington, DC, conducted a series of focus groups early in 1997 to open up the discussion with Medica members and have the members help design the survey process.¹ One thousand nine hundred sixty-seven members participated in the interviews, taking about twenty-five minutes on the telephone. Results were based on an in-depth study of 1,033 interviews, representative of the whole Allina subscriber population (including oversamples with non-Twin City members) across five insurance products and members with high utilization.

Results illustrated the desire of the health plan members to specifically have a greater voice in the direction the HMO was going and the role its health care resources, the physicians, should be playing. The health plan was not perceived to consult with its members or place a high priority on listening to their views. And, while the physicians are the organizat...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• CONTENTS
• ABOUT THE AUTHOR
• Preface
• Introduction
• PART I: UNDERSTANDING CONSUMER SATISFACTION AS A WAY OF DOING BUSINESS
• PART II: THE MANAGEMENT OF CONSUMER SATISFACTION IN MEDICAL SERVICES
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index