Put Gratitude on Repeat Rubric: Available In New Book, Summer 2024
It's been touted as a leadership and HR axiom that the customer/patient experience directly reflects the current employee experience. So, if you have an unhealthy or toxic workplace culture, don't expect much better when your employees are interacting with the patients you serve. By Editor, Concierge Medicine Today
How do your patients feel, really?
We’re not talking about their physical symptoms. We’re talking about their feelings.
Squishy right?
Patients walk into your practice each day with two things: feelings and needs. Typically, the Doctor is amazing at meeting the patient’s physical needs. However, feelings are just as important.
Consider how the patient felt when they waited on hold to make an appointment after navigating an overly complicated phone tree. How did they feel when no one remembered their name when they checked in? How did they feel when the clipboard of forms was given to them again? Or, how did they feel when they were escorted to the exam room, the door closed, and they were left alone with no ETA about when the Doctor would arrive? And how did they feel when your team helped them check out and didn’t explain the bill?
Every patient will leave with a feeling about you and your practice. In today’s rushed and impersonal healthcare environment, patients’ feelings and subsequent actions and reactions are born from their experiences. Think about your last five online reviews. When the patient spent 27 minutes waiting in an empty seating area with no updates from the personnel who sat just ten feet away, gossiping about their coworkers and making endless phone calls, how does that make them feel? When the doctor kept forgetting their name, how did that experience make them feel?
- BONUS "GRATITUDE RUBRIC" INCLUDED IN THE BOOK! ORDER NEW BOOK HERE ...
- Release/Ship Date: May 31, 2024 (or sooner, if possible!)
Patients are burning out. I know this because I am a Patient. We all are. We’re feeling unwelcomed, disrespected, rushed, ignored, and undervalued. Most medical office leaders would blame it on bureaucracy, insurance hassles, and busyness and cross their arms, ignore the awkward feelings patients get, and move on with their day. Few are willing to try something different and make the patient feel like they’re at home here.
Fortunately, even science backs us up on this. According to Harvard professor Gerald Zaltman, “95% of purchase decision-making takes place in the subconscious mind”. So, in essence, our emotions drive purchasing behavior and our decision-making 95% of the time. This means that if you and your medical office team are not habitually paying attention to a patient's feelings throughout the entire journey, from start to finish, patients will go elsewhere. Chances are they’ll find someone who pays attention to all the little details that make them feel a certain way about their healthcare beyond the doctor meeting their needs.
Let me be clear: this book does not advocate removing all waiting rooms from our healthcare culture. In many areas, they’re necessary. But we need to do more about addressing the small habits medical offices have become accustomed to under the business of busyness and hiding behind the excuse of “Well, that’s how we’ve always done it.” For patients in today's healthcare culture, the most challenging part is not the actual waiting but when we feel that the medical staff and our Doctors have forgotten about us and don’t meet our expectations. We get a feeling when we’re on the other side of you and your team.
Like it or not, this is a marketing book, but not in the traditional sense. Old-school marketing tells customers (i.e., patients) that you control the message. Today, that theory doesn’t hold water. Today, new school marketing, especially in healthcare settings, says, “The customers (i.e., patients) inform others about you.”
This is where feelings get involved, and a simple appointment can turn into a remarkable and memorable story for patients who will tell others about you and your team. You see, it’s about the front office staff talking with the patients until the insurance benefits and bills are really understood. It’s about the smile from the nurse and the conversation about your kids in the exam room while you’re stepping onto the scale. Every Patient who leaves your practice will tell someone else a story. What you and your team do throughout the entire patient journey helps each person “feel” like they really matter to you. It’s gratitude and servanthood in healthcare at its best.
Embracing concierge medicine, doctors and their medical offices plan for, prepare for, and follow habits in their practice that create a meaningful connection with their patients. Patients get a feeling about these practices, and inside this book, we’ll share some of those stories.
"Hospitality is a process, but the patient should never feel processed,” says Tetreault. “Unfortunately, that’s just how it is. We cannot accept that. This new customer service book (and a little marketing) is designed to inform doctors and medical office personnel about better preparing today to exceed patient expectations tomorrow. It will identify everyday healthcare customer service dilemmas and help you and your team navigate the switchbacks and speedbumps so you can lead the patient where you want them to go without that awkward feeling. The ultimate destination isn’t a satisfied patient. It’s a raving storyteller who leaves your practice feeling like 'I feel cared for. I feel seen. I feel heard and I feel like they ALL care about me!'"
Disclaimer: We’re still learning, too, so don’t confuse our passion with thinking that we have it all figured out. We don’t. We want to help design a map and send it back to a few in healthcare that are willing to follow. Check back often for this book's updated version and bonus content!