The Sunday Mail
Cresencia Marjorie Chiremba
“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you will do things differently”- Warren Buffett
Health is one of the key factors that determine how a country’s economy is performing.
However, there exists a gap in terms of healthcare service provision as some medical staff lack proper customer service when dealing with patients.
Here are some ways in which hospitals and clinics can use to provide better customer service in healthcare.
1. Staff training
The hospital or medical facility experience is usually determined by the facility’s recruitment and selection of staff members.
The staff must provide good customer service or at least be trained on how to provide it.
Regular staff training is very important.
Different organisations have different protocols and best practices.
It is only prudent to improve your customer experience by training and re-training your team so as to rebuild their basic skills in customer (patient) handling.
The team should be trained according to the specifics of the organisation so that whenever your patients visit the facility, they have the same experience.
2. Patient Records Accessibility
Healthcare facilities must move with the times and create what is called a ‘patient portal’ that is user-friendly.
Patients’ information must be entered into a portal where every patient within the database can create an account to access specific information such as lab results and medical history.
This means the portal must be easy to search online, navigate, and have a support chat-bot or number.
Such a portal must guarantee confidentiality.
Instructions and important information must be clearly written in all major languages.
3. Billing and Collections
Healthcare comes at a cost. After receiving a service, the next step is to pay for the service received.
In Zimbabwe, some health institutions require a patient to pay upfront before admission, while others offer the service before demanding payment.
Medical-aid holders tend to receive a raw deal, with some institutions refusing to accept certain medical aids, which can be costly and inconvenient to the patient requiring service.
In some cases, patients are asked to pay outrageous and unplanned top-up fees.
On the other hand, bill processing can also be tedious.
It is always polite to ask patients how they prefer to receive and settle their bills.
Patients like it when a healthcare provider takes steps to improve the way bills are sent, as well as payment collection.
An efficient transactional process is a plus when talking about successful customer service.
Most patients prefer the service provider to communicate with them directly and let them know how much they owe and how they can settle the bill rather than detain a patient.
4. Document Patient Notes
Proper documentation of a patient’s notes is equally important, because note-taking is part of the job of healthcare staff.
Since healthcare professionals work as teams, communication with each team player should be effective at every touchpoint.
Thus, if one member of the team documents the patient’s notes wrongly, it will result in miscommunication of the patient’s actual needs to the other members, and this may affect their treatment journey and experience.
There is no need for a patient to continuously repeat their medical history and pain to the same professionals because some team member along the line failed to properly document that information.
It is even more frustrating when the patient’s problem is intensely private, embarrassing or traumatic. There tends to be a lot of stigma on health matters.
It saves time, effort and dignity of both the patient and medical staff if notes are taken properly the first time.
5. Aftercare for Discharged Patient
In other sectors, we call it the after-sales service, but in the medical field it is the after-care service.
Some healthcare providers think that the moment a patient walks out of the door that is the end of patient care.
Patient after-care service shows that you truly care for your patients.
Being far from direct supervision by doctors and nurses may make some patients uneasy; therefore, they can be cared for virtually through certain health applications.
For instance, you can share a health (app) application with your discharged patients that will allow the user to share their health information, which can then be sent to the service provider online and interpreted by the doctors.
*Cresencia Marjorie Chiremba is a marketing enthusiast with a strong passion for customer service. For comments, suggestions and training, she can be reached on [email protected] or on 0712 979 461, 0719 978 335
