Improving Patient Relations




As with any service, we want our medical office to be the best, since that's how you create brand loyalty. While medicine may seem quite different from, say, a hardware store, the fact is both are quite similar from a business standpoint. People come in seeking individual attention and expertise, and often are intimidated by the surroundings. In either case, an inviting atmosphere is more likely to entice and keep people in the fold, and it truly pays to think of ways to make the patient/customer feel important.




One of the things we started to do this past year was stop with the flimsy, paper gowns provided to patients. After listening to a sales presentation from a local healthcare linen and laundry chain, we decided to try their service. Patients immediately responded by saying they found the new garments less drafty and embarrassing, and when you factored in waste disposal, we really weren't paying that much more for the new service. Even the doctors had to admit it made us seem more like a class act.




Another easy area to improve things is the waiting room. Discard older magazines, and make sure the ones you have target the people who visit your practice. If you aren't sure what people might want to read, ask them occasionally. The Guinness Book of World Records is a great addition to any waiting room, as are coffee table books featuring art, photography, or even healthy recipes. For very little cost, you can provide a variety of materials for people to browse, relieving their anxiety as they wait for their appointment.




If you have a television in your waiting room, monitor what's playing on it. Again, it's important to keep in mind who your target audience is. If you have a lot of children in your practice, you might want to provide a small sample of current DVDs to play, whereas a more adult crowd would probably appreciate a cable news channel or even something on Turner Classic Movies.




Finally, the best way to keep patients happy is to schedule them properly, so their appointments start as close to the time promised as possible. I'll admit that is often easier said than done, and the chaos of an average workday can derail even the most punctual staff. However, I've found that when that happens, it never hurts to update the patients accordingly, so they don't feel neglected.




I think the best businesses identify with their clientele. This is especially true of medicine, which is often intimate and invasive by necessity, and works best when people are made to feel welcome and treated with respect.




As always, I'm open to suggestions. What do you do to make your practice a more welcoming place?