Why should you prioritize patient experiences?
Patient experiences are what drive patient satisfaction, which is a key indicator for the success and growth of a healthcare business. But many healthcare businesses make improving patient experiences secondary or even tertiary goals and hardly try to prioritize the improvement of patient experiences themselves.
Introduction
As customers, we judge a
business’ service through the experiences we have. A poor customer experience
is likely not going to result in recurrent patronage of a business while at the
same time a great customer experience can even overcome some pitfalls in other
areas of the business.
The same is also true of
patients. Patients today are paying large sums of money to have their healthcare
needs taken care of and thus, want to be treated just like a customer would be
in any other industry or service.
The healthcare industry
has begun to recognize the fact that patients are indeed paying customers and
the industry needs to reorient itself as a service-related industry. But for
many healthcare businesses, a reorientation hasn’t emerged in the goals that
they are setting for themselves.
Patient experiences today
are a critical measure of success, outcomes, and more for any business in the
healthcare industry. Patient experiences directly impact the satisfaction of a
patient – good experiences lead to higher satisfaction and bad experiences lead
to lower satisfaction.
Third-party-payers,
government agencies, investors, and even prospective patients now check the
patient satisfaction scores of hospitals through the CAHPS Hospital Survey or
HCAHPS to understand how well a hospital or healthcare business is doing, from
the perspective of their patients.
In this environment,
healthcare businesses need to realize that prioritizing their patient’s
experience is the topmost concern.
Patient
Experience
An adage that can be heard
in many consumer-facing industries and segments, like retail and sales, is that
the ‘customer is always right or the ‘customer is king’. While this can’t be
adopted completely as it stands for the healthcare industry, businesses do need
to realize that patients are not going to be ‘patient’ enough to remain passive
about their healthcare as time goes on.
Patients are consumers and want a say in their own healthcare journeys. This creates expectations in patients, apart from just getting better or being treated, which is what drives patient satisfaction. If a patient’s experience matches their expectations, they are satisfied. If it doesn’t, then a healthcare business loses not only that one patient but many others that the patient may inform about their experience.
“The patient experience is formed by
everyone who comes into contact with the patient along the health care journey,
from front-desk receptionists to the nurses and doctors who provide direct
care. Even the physical and virtual environments in which patient-provider
touchpoints occur leave an impression” ~ Harvard Business Review
To put it more simply, patient experience is how a patient feels
at the end of the care journey. While simplistic, this definition allows
healthcare businesses to understand what exactly patient experience is aiming
to measure – the patient’s perspective of their healthcare journey.
Why they should be prioritized?
Patient satisfaction
levels have a direct correlation with important factors like clinical outcomes,
patient retention, and the likelihood of medical malpractice claims. Good
patient experiences will consequently have an effect on patient retention and
acquisition.
Additionally, individuals
are most likely to listen to the recommendations of their friends and families
for healthcare providers. A single satisfied patient will promote the
healthcare business and be a brand advisor to their families, friends, and
more.
However, at the same time,
a single dissatisfaction presents a loss of hundreds of thousands of dollars
not just by their business but through others that they influence. Healthcare
providers are improving customer retention and customer acquisition by
prioritizing patient experiences, and with each US healthcare customer spending
over $10,000 in a year the financial incentives of doing so quickly add
up.
Providing great patient
experiences is just one way of getting effective and free patient marketing.
Some of the benefits of enhancing patient experiences are:
Insulation from price change – patients
remain loyal to a healthcare business despite any changes in prices
Higher Reimbursement – higher
patient satisfaction levels lead to higher reimbursement through third-party
payers, Medicare, and more
Higher morale – happier
patients lead to higher morale and spirits in staff and providers
Patient
experience best practices include measures like improving engagement with
patients, promoting prevention, improving communication, and creating
patient-focused systems.
Conclusion
Patient experiences today should be a
key focus of the healthcare industry. Healthcare businesses should carefully
take stock of the changing dynamics that patients have with businesses and try
to ensure that patient experiences match up and even surpass their
expectations. Doing so will lead to higher patient satisfaction rates, which
will not only have financial but morale and growth benefits.
However, just talking about
prioritizing to improve patient satisfaction is easy, while achieving the same is harder.
BraveLabs is working with healthcare and pharmaceutical businesses to help
them improve their patient experiences through patient management tools,
content management, and patient engagement.
Bring your healthcare business to the
digital age, contact BraveLabs today.
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