How Can You Make Your Healthcare Business More Customer-Centric?
Health care is one of the essential sectors, albeit expensive. According to a recent study of healthcare expenditures, America spends nearly twice as much on healthcare as ten other wealthy countries. This industry is highly profitable but competitive, and it is often hard for providers to operate with the customer at the center of it all. Nevertheless, customer-centricity is a very achievable goal in the healthcare industry, so you can do many things to make patrons the ultimate priority over profit. Below are some of the best ways to make your healthcare business more customer-centric.
- Refer patients when appropriate
Customer acquisition is one of the biggest goals of any business, including healthcare companies. Many enterprises in other industries can barely entertain the idea of losing their precious patrons to other businesses. However, the healthcare sector is quite different, so you should be ready to refer patients to more appropriate providers when needed. Patient referral is necessary if your facility lacks the infrastructure and know-how to provide the best level of care to patients with specific conditions.
It is best to prioritize patient wellbeing and refer them to specialists best suited to treat them instead of attempting to treat them for profit. For instance, you can offer advice, treatment, and information to dementia patients that visit your premises. However, consider referring to them if there is uncertainty about the diagnosis after evaluation in treatment. You should also refer these patients to a specialized dementia care NY facility if they display challenging behaviors or respond to treatment poorly. However, your role as a customer-centric provider doesn’t end with a simple referral. It is estimated that 25% to 50% of referring providers never follow up to determine whether their patients went to the specialist. Therefore, always follow up on patient referrals to ensure that patients get the care they need.
- Offer more seamless access to information and care
It is common knowledge that today’s patients expect rapid access to information and care at any point in time. Therefore, make access to these services more seamless and convenient by leveraging various telehealth platforms. Also, ensure that all information patients may want to know about their healthcare, including lab results and personal health records, are available to them. Patient portals are a great way to achieve this, so you should launch one for your medical practice.
- Better patient communications
Clients always want to give and receive feedback from any business they engage with, and your healthcare enterprise is no exception. Therefore, communicate openly with your patients concerning their health, care price, and satisfaction with service quality. You can communicate with patients in person or rely on various apps to ensure they receive personal attention and express themselves freely. Furthermore, gathering feedback on your service quality can help you improve the customer experience and earn more money. Feedback collection can be as simple as conducting satisfaction surveys on tablets in your waiting room to collect data and insights or making a suggestion box available.
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