While most patients still prefer face-to-face visits, most healthcare organizations have implemented remote patient care services in an attempt to comply with COVID-related protocol, boost care coordination, and manage at-risk patients.
Whether patients wanted it to or not, telemedicine is in full swing, and on average, physicians, staff, and patients have gone through the initial learning curve and finally settled into virtual care. So, how do we ensure our patients are receiving the best care possible and improve patient satisfaction? Keep reading for five ways to enhance the remote patient experience.
Provide better outcomes with faster care.
Most times, the faster the patient receives treatment, the better the potential results of that treatment. When patients wait prolonged periods to receive treatment, their ailments can worsen. Not only does this result in unhappy patients, but it makes it that much more difficult for the practitioner to restore them to full health.
When patients seek treatment via telehealth there are fewer barriers to prompt care delivery. This means patients can get on the path to recovery before their conditions worsen, leading to better patient outcomes, and higher patient satisfaction levels.
Set your patients up for success.
Coach patients through what they will need for their next appointment to be successful. Encourage patients to write-down a to-do list at the end of the visit, record a voice memo on their smart device, or record the tasks in an app—bonus points for involving the patient’s primary caregiver. Ensuring their online visits are successful is a big way we can enhance the remote patient experience. Some good to-do list applications include:
Ensure patients feel like a priority with remote visits.
No one likes to feel ignored or overlooked. And when a patient is sick or in pain and is stuck in the waiting room, it’s easy for that patient to feel as if they don’t matter. When a patient sees a physician and is already in a bad mood because of feeling neglected, it’s tough to reverse those feelings, regardless of how fantastic their treatment is.
Telemedicine, on the other hand, allows patients to bypass long and negative waiting room experiences, which means they go into their patient-doctor interactions with a much higher level of satisfaction.
Want some more tips on helping your patients adapt to new technology? Click here!
Reiterate that telemedicine is less expensive.
Studies show that remote health services are usually cheaper than healthcare delivered in a traditional setting. Not only at the individual visit level, but also in terms of downstream cost savings.
According to Save.Health, a typical telehealth appointment with a primary care provider, costs about $50 instead of a traditional in-person office visit that generally costs about $176 per visit. “Insurance copays may bring this down to $15 or $20 a visit, but telehealth appointments will often not even have a copay at all.”
They will also see money savings in fuel costs, less time off work, and there will be no need to hire childcare. And as we know, the less money patients have to shell out for healthcare services, the happier they are.
You will be able to see more patients throughout the day.
Usually, when a patient calls the office to make an appointment, it’s days, weeks, sometimes even months before they can get in. In a physical medical office building, a provider’s ability to schedule is contingent on treatment room availability. There are only so many rooms in the office, which means there’s a limited amount of availability on the calendar.
However, telehealth eliminates those scheduling constraints, freeing up providers to see more patients, and create more satisfied customers.
Today’s healthcare consumers have high expectations, and for busy healthcare providers dealing with COVID related issues and limited resources, meeting those expectations can be challenging.
But with new remote opportunities and in the current reform-driven healthcare environment, the importance of patient satisfaction will only continue to grow. This means busy medical offices need to implement new and innovative ideas to keep their patients satisfied and enhance their remote patient experience.
Tags: medical office management, medical offices, national organization of rheumatology managers, NORM, office management, office managers, patient feedback, patient portal, remote experiences, telehealth, telehealth options Posted by
