Patient experience5 min read
Why patients leave without telling you
Patient attrition is rarely a clinical failure. It is usually a communication gap that nobody logged, in a practice that believed its satisfaction scores.
Is the only time your patients talk to their doctor a fifteen-minute visit? If so, patients may feel more like a number and less like a person. Or they may be confused about their follow-up care, and simply not come back.
A recent MGMA e-Source newsletter article reported that more doctor communication equals better patient care. There are plenty of ways to support the relationship patients have with providers, leading to greater satisfaction and the number one priority of the practice: quality care.
Help patients ask better questions
Educate patients before the visit about what they should ask. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality's Questions Are the Answer programme offers practical tips for patients to give and get information, and lets them build and print their own question list. Put that guidance in your pre-visit message, when it is still useful.
Make the record visible in the room
When the record works, physicians spend less time with charts and more time with patients. Sharing information from a patient's personal health record during the visit helps them feel that their doctor is ahead of the technology curve rather than behind it.
Collect feedback, then close the loop
- Feedback forms in the waiting room.
- A short web form linked from every post-visit message.
- Cards handed over by the physician at the end of a visit.
- A documented reply to every response, and a quarterly note on what changed.
Collecting feedback without responding to it is worse than not collecting it. Patients who take the trouble to tell you something and hear nothing back conclude, reasonably, that nobody is listening.
Use email and messaging within the right boundary
Email is convenient for patients and less disruptive for front-office staff than a ringing phone, and it can be answered in scheduled blocks. A structured form on the practice website lets patients request refills, appointments and results without a call.
All sensitive health information must be delivered through a secure web link or portal, never attached to an email. Configure that boundary once and make the safe path the default one.
Language, welcome and the first thirty seconds
What patients experience before they speak to a doctor shapes how they feel about that doctor. Compassionate staff who genuinely like working with people convey that each patient is a valued individual. If your patient base includes people who speak other languages, make sure clinicians can communicate before agreeing to see them, and that signage, prescriptions and statements carry translations.
Written by
MBS Patient Experience Team
