Doctors and their practices have been conditioned to think that cost is the biggest barrier to patients moving forward with elective procedures. Dig a bit deeper and you find that affordability – not price itself – has a huge impact on patient decision making. According to a recent study, the unmet demand for payment plans has created an opportunity for vision, cosmetic and dental practices to expand demand for services by 50%.
In this week’s blog post, I focus on CONNECTION – one of the four attributes that patients really want to see in their doctor.
Many practices tell me they have a difficult time recruiting great employees. The problem may lie in where you are looking! In recent travels I have met rockstar employees that all have one thing in common: they were recruited from outside of healthcare.
We touched on some key issues facing medical practices in how we treat patients.
I was able to do a one-on-one sit down with my favorite expert on customer service, John DiJulius. His career and client list is legendary and now includes the Charlotte Police Department!
We touched on some key issues facing medical practices in how we treat patients.
When expectations are high, the risk of failing to meet them are great. There’s a lot we can learn and apply in medical practices from a disappointing fine dining experience at Disneyland.
Some people may think that medicine and the healthcare industry are world’s apart from customer service and the hospitality industry. That’s simply not the case. There is much that medical practices can learn in terms of how to better interact with patients as part of the overall experience. Here are 4 lessons doctors can learn from the hospitality industry for their own practices.
I’ve been fortunate to work with some great medical practices over the years. If there’s anything I’ve learned, it’s that the “big ideas” we come up with for change are often mistaken for having a big impact on how the practice is perceived. In reality, it’s the little things – the details of daily life at work – that seem to make the real difference as far as patients and employees are concerned.
What has the pandemic meant for elective procedure demand? From what we’ve seen, it’s meant a major surge in patients choosing to get corrective eye surgery, dental procedures, and other elective medical treatments. Why? Because the anxiety created by the pandemic caused people to examine in new ways what’s important to them.
One of the reasons healthcare is “stuck” in the old ways begins with how we view the people who are coming in for medical services.
Are they your patients or are they your customers?
One term is limited to clinical care while the other opens the door to better experiences, more referrals, and higher overall satisfaction.
Regulations drive a wedge between the doctor and the patient, but a big share of the problem rests with doctors themselves. Let’s talk about the culture that is leading to dissatisfaction by both patients and doctors – and how you can help fix it.
