The Ingredients Of Good Customer Service In The Healthcare Industry
Just like other businesses, medical care is a service that needs to be based on well-defined customer service standards. Health care is something that everyone needs and poor quality medical care or substandard customer service may not only invite ill-reputation, but may also create a ground for the ill-treated clients to file complaints with the local licensing authorities. Good medical care forms the foundation of a good medical service. No matter how good a doctor, nurse, or a technician is, the patient’s real experience will be shaped by the accuracy of medical diagnosis and the effectiveness of the course of action that the doctor suggests. This may require a medical professional to spend adequate time in listening to the patients’ problems and examining the patient’s chart, diagnosis reports, and prescriptions to prevent mistakes.
Medical services are pricy and patients often find billing practices to be complicated. Medical care services should explain their billing procedures in detail to the patients and should also ensure timely billing of Medicare and insurance. The invoice should clearly indicate the costs of services that a patient has availed and should also outline a dispute procedure that a patient can follow to challenge his/her bill.
Safeguarding patients’ privacy is one of the main responsibilities of a medical care service. Patients expect their medical service providers to protect their confidential information and federal and local laws demand 100 percent compliance in this area. A medical service provider should exercise proper caution in handling its patients’ sensitive information and should ensure safe storage of patients’ records including electronic records. Additionally, medical facilities should also provide a private area for the patients to discuss their problems freely. Patients are more likely to feel free to reveal their problems when they know that their privacy is safeguarded.
People and their ‘people skills’ form the foundation of a business’s customer service standard. And this is of greater significance for medical services which have sick, anxious patients as their customers. Medical services should have friendly and respectful staff who can answer patients’ questions with empathy. Patients have health concerns and they may have a lot of questions to be answered. So it is very important that a medical service allows its patients access to the answers that they may look for. When patients can directly contact a doctor through email or talk to a nurse over phone and are able to discuss their symptoms and seek guidance on the possible course of action, they are more likely to provide a positive rating about the medical service.
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