8 Surprisingly Common Mistakes that Negatively Affect Patient Loyalty in Your Private Practice
Dr. Ismail Sayeed
Director of The VIOS Clinic - A Virtual MSO Platform | Helping Doctors start their own Telehealth Practice | Building Healthcare, on your terms - ask me how ??
It's no secret that private healthcare practices are struggling. In order to remain competitive, it's important for practice administrators and doctors to make sure they're not making any common mistakes that can negatively affect patient loyalty. In this blog post, we'll outline eight of the most common sources of poor patient experience.
Location
One of the most important aspects to consider when discussing patient loyalty is how location affects patient loyalty. Many people stay in one place throughout their entire life, so if healthcare is not available everywhere, patient loyalty will more likely be found with patients who were born and raised around a certain health facility rather than those who may have moved elsewhere.?
Higher income populations often value patient choice more than lower income populations because they are more likely to move from job to job or from town to town instead of being restricted by their geographic location.
If a patient only had access to health care through one location, they would likely develop patient loyalty at that specific place even if it meant traveling great distances. Once patient loyalty has been established, it can be difficult for competing facilities or practices to attract new patients because of patient loyalty.?
Therefore patient loyalty can have a positive effect on patient satisfaction, but it can also prevent patient choice and breed monopolies at specific facilities or practices that may provide less cost-effective care.
Poor Coverage & Hidden Fees
Insurance companies have been dramatically increasing patient out-of-pocket expenses, forcing them to choose between losing their patient, or going into debt. In many cases, insurance companies are either refusing to acknowledge medical fees from the patient's provider as a reimbursable charge, or they're failing to pay for services that were anticipated and expected by patient and provider alike.?
This trickles down into a loss of patient loyalty towards the patient's providers if their insurance carrier doesn't cover what was promised at the time of appointment. Insurance carriers need to improve their policies surrounding hidden fees and reimbursements in order to preserve patient loyalty amongst those who depend on them for coverage.
Customer experience/support
Patients are more likely to be loyal if they feel heard, respected and valued by their doctors and care team members (such as nurses and other assistants). Customer service teams play an essential role in providing quality healthcare for patients and their support is an important factor when it comes to maintaining healthy patient-provider relationships.?
As such, poor customer service could result in lower levels of patient loyalty over time, leading to dissatisfaction among patients and ultimately causing them to switch providers.
Customers who communicate with representatives from a company via phone email may not always receive adequate customer support, which in turn can lead to negative experiences when customers are not receiving the guidance they need.?
Subsequently, customers may become frustrated with customer service representatives who do not provide answers to their questions in a timely or efficient manner. According to research conducted by Maritz Polling and Research, only 52 percent of surveyed customers are satisfied with their overall customer experience while just 38 percent rate the quality of customer support they receive positively.?
The survey also found that 66 percent of consumers would be willing to pay more for better customer support services.
More than half (53%) of respondents said that poor customer support has made them less loyal toward brands, while 46% claimed that having their complaints go unanswered caused them to stop using certain companies' products or services altogether.
Customer's expectations for quality customer service are increasing each year, with 86 percent expecting brands to deliver on positive support experiences in 2017 (a 7% increase from 2016). As such, it is becoming increasingly important for healthcare providers to focus on delivering excellent customer service in order to maintain healthy relationships with patients over the long-term.
Not every patient who has experienced poor customer care while engaging with a healthcare provider will develop negative feelings towards them; some may choose not to form an emotional attachment at all. However, research has shown that many patients feel disconnected from their healthcare providers if they do not perceive them as approachable. This can create an untenable situation, where the patient ultimately develops negative feelings towards the provider due to feeling judged or ignored by them.
A survey conducted by the University of Michigan's Center for Healthcare Research and Transformation found that 56 percent of surveyed patients said that being able to easily reach a real person at their doctor's office would make them more likely to recommend it to others, while just 18 percent said that having email access would have the same effect.?
On average, 56% of customers are willing to recommend their primary care physician's practice if they are given easy access to customer support via phone or email. Providing patients with multiple means of contact when they have questions is critical to ensuring that they feel valued by their doctor's office.
The University of Michigan's Center for Healthcare Research and Transformation found that 28 percent of surveyed patients would be willing to recommend their doctor if the practice had an effective customer service strategy in place, while just 5 percent said that overall quality was the most important factor. A healthcare provider's ability to provide reliable customer support not only has a direct effect on patient loyalty but also plays an important role in encouraging positive word-of-mouth referrals from satisfied customers.
Scheduling conflicts
Many patients have trouble getting the time they want with their doctor when there's a scheduling conflict, which leads to less patient loyalty and patient care problems down the road when people don't get in when they're supposed to.
Online appointment software allows patients to schedule their appointments without having to interact with receptionists or other humans which leads to increased patient satisfaction and increased patient scheduling compliance because there's no one between them and their doctors anymore. Doctors love online appointment setting systems because it allows them more time for quality patient care, patient scheduling compliance that saves them time, and patient satisfaction.
Waiting times/delays
Patient wait times are a real problem in the healthcare industry, affecting patient satisfaction and loyalty quite significantly. While these waiting times might not always be under the control of doctors - especially when there is an influx in patients due to accidents or emergencies - it still affects patient satisfaction greatly which weakens patient loyalty.?
On top of this, since patient satisfaction drops dramatically for every hour spent waiting, doctors lose financial resources as well. Doctors spend significant resources on marketing and advertisements to get new patients through the door who will be satisfied with their services.?
Patients who have experienced long patient wait times before being seen by their doctor are much less likely to return in the future. Private practices should do everything within their power to try cutting down on patient wait times so as to increase patient satisfaction rates and strengthen patient loyalty.?
With increased patient retention patient volume increases which affects patient revenue positively and patient churn decreases. This also benefits the patient because waiting times are shorter for them, patient satisfaction is higher due to smaller patient wait times (less time spent waiting), patient loyalty is increased as they become more satisfied with their doctor and ultimately patient mortality rates are decreased.
Immediate patient satisfaction is key in patient loyalty, and patient loyalty is a direct factor in patient retention. Patient retention affects the doctor positively by increasing patient volume which results in more revenue, but patient retention can also affect doctors negatively through high patient churn - when patients simply stop coming to see their doctor due to time waiting and seeing that doctor taking too long to take care of them.
Complex jargon + miscommunication
Patients do not feel patient satisfaction when they are worried about their health condition and especially if they are unable to communicate with medical teams, which decreases patient loyalty]. This ultimately can have negative effects on patient treatment outcomes and patient retention rates.
This can lead to misdiagnosis which is harmful for patient health. Patient retention rates also decrease when there is a language barrier between patient and medical team members. Patients that do not feel like they have gotten proper explanation of their condition will leave medical facilities more readily than those who have gotten all questions answered about what they are going through.
Better patient communication leads to higher patient satisfaction with care, excellent patient relationship building, improved patient compliance in following medical treatment plans, and ultimately patient loyalty.
Difficulty accessing health records
As patient satisfaction plays an important role in patient loyalty, patient engagement and relationship building, health professionals’ ability to access patient’s medical history at the time of service is crucial. Without this information, doctors are unable to make an accurate diagnosis or provide proper treatment which can lead to long-term patient outcomes.?
If patient records were readily available it would increase patient satisfaction because patients are able to get their questions answered quickly without wondering whether or not they are getting the best care possible. This increased patient knowledge leads to increased trust between them and their doctor resulting in higher patient loyalty ultimately leading to better patient outcomes.
In the era of monetizing health data, most patients are now more adamant about storing and accessing their own health records, and the measures taken to adequately secure their privacy.?
Healthcare organizations who neglect the cyber security protocols enacted on a federal level risk paying out massive fines whenever there are data breaches, either unintentionally or by malicious cyber attacks.
Absence of community trust/lack of word of mouth marketing
Lack of patient trust can affect patient loyalty in many ways because patients will not feel comfortable speaking candidly about their experience with a healthcare provider if they do not feel that their privacy is being respected.??
If the patient does not feel that he/she can be truly open up with the healthcare provider then there is no opportunity for an effective relationship to form and doctor-patient relationships are crucial for patient satisfaction and safety.??
Patients also may hesitate to recommend a doctor or hospital to friends and family members which will hurt the doctor's community reputation and will hurt his/her word of mouth marketing efforts.
CONCLUSION
Improving patient loyalty to your practice does not need to be an expensive task. Simply reassessing your value to the community and how you can deliver excellect healthcare experiences should be top of mind strategies in 2022. The only way this will happen, is if we all work together- from staff members at hospitals, clinics, doctors offices and more. Subscribe today for blog posts on digital health trends that can help get started!