Despite your practice's best efforts, at some point in time, someone such as a patient, other physicians or carrier is going to complain. This is the perfect opportunity to take this feedback and evaluate what changes can be made to help your practice become even better.
Target Areas for Improvement
Turning negatives into positives.
* Create spread sheets for the three most likely sources of complaints. Patient/family member, carriers and other physicians. Each one will typically be handled differently.
* Record the date, time and type of complaint that was being made, (e.g. billing issue, staff behavior, quality of care, wait times, etc. )
* Log what was done or what needs to be done to resolve the complaint.
* Log the date and time the issue was resolved.
* Have the office do this for at least two weeks or up to one month to get a good feel for all aspects of problem areas. Example - Patient portion's of what they owe on their end usually is sent out once a month, so this could be included in evaluating any billing issues.
Now analyze the data, looking for patterns.
For quality-of-care issues, is there an upward trend in post-procedure infections or are staff being accused of improper hand washing or any other practices? Ideally, complaints should be received by one person with authority to address most of them without seeking approval.
Staff not in a position to resolve the issue themselves could say "This sounds important. May I transfer you to my supervisor so this can be addressed right away?" If there's no immediate resolution, inform the person there'll be a delay and explain why. This shows that the practice does care about the matter and is not just sweeping it under the rug. It's important that from wherever the complaint is coming from that it be handled with tact and the person with the complaint is being heard.
At the end of the two weeks or up to one month period that your practice has been tracking complaints and issues, it's good to go over with the entire staff the results of what was recorded. This is a good time for the entire staff to work together as a team and find ways to resolve issues and also to help the office to run smoother and have it be everyone's goal to have less complaints.
Also a practice that is thriving is usually an office that has a high referral rate. It's very important that other physicians that call the office or refer a patient be treated with the up most respect and dignity because they will be more likely to refer patients. Some practices even have a separate phone line just for physicians. This is so that they will not be on hold for a long period of time.
Remember, more carriers are implementing pay-for-performance programs, and patient satisfaction is a heavily weighted element.
Target Areas for Improvement
Turning negatives into positives.
* Create spread sheets for the three most likely sources of complaints. Patient/family member, carriers and other physicians. Each one will typically be handled differently.
* Record the date, time and type of complaint that was being made, (e.g. billing issue, staff behavior, quality of care, wait times, etc. )
* Log what was done or what needs to be done to resolve the complaint.
* Log the date and time the issue was resolved.
* Have the office do this for at least two weeks or up to one month to get a good feel for all aspects of problem areas. Example - Patient portion's of what they owe on their end usually is sent out once a month, so this could be included in evaluating any billing issues.
Now analyze the data, looking for patterns.
For quality-of-care issues, is there an upward trend in post-procedure infections or are staff being accused of improper hand washing or any other practices? Ideally, complaints should be received by one person with authority to address most of them without seeking approval.
Staff not in a position to resolve the issue themselves could say "This sounds important. May I transfer you to my supervisor so this can be addressed right away?" If there's no immediate resolution, inform the person there'll be a delay and explain why. This shows that the practice does care about the matter and is not just sweeping it under the rug. It's important that from wherever the complaint is coming from that it be handled with tact and the person with the complaint is being heard.
At the end of the two weeks or up to one month period that your practice has been tracking complaints and issues, it's good to go over with the entire staff the results of what was recorded. This is a good time for the entire staff to work together as a team and find ways to resolve issues and also to help the office to run smoother and have it be everyone's goal to have less complaints.
Also a practice that is thriving is usually an office that has a high referral rate. It's very important that other physicians that call the office or refer a patient be treated with the up most respect and dignity because they will be more likely to refer patients. Some practices even have a separate phone line just for physicians. This is so that they will not be on hold for a long period of time.
Remember, more carriers are implementing pay-for-performance programs, and patient satisfaction is a heavily weighted element.