Practice Metrics

What Does It Take to Leave Patients with a Good Impression of their OD?

Patients say they want to be heard when they visit an eye doctor. According to a new study, Key Drivers of the Patient Experience, participants cited the following terms when asked to define a good experience with doctor-patient communications: “explaining results,” “questions answered,” “listens,” “unhurried” and “professionalism.” Participants also noted the importance of factors such as “doctor knows me,” “understandable” and “knowledgeable” as essential to having a good doctor-patient experience. The study was conducted by focalCenter and Jobson Research.

There are at least two major reasons to improve your patient communication skills: patient loyalty and malpractice.

You do not want just satisfied patients, you want loyal patients. One significant way to achieve patient loyalty is to establish excellent relationships with your patients. A key to excellent relationship building is getting the patient to feel that the “doctor knows me.” This comes through improved communication with your patients.

The second reason to improve your patient communication skills is malpractice. Simply stated, patients don’t sue doctors they like. If you ask most doctors about their communication skills, the doctor will say they are excellent. If you ask patients, the answer is often the opposite. Since this is such an important concept, let’s explore it further.

There is a significant difference between talking and communicating. Communicating means the patient has the same understanding as you. Just because you say words to a patient does not mean you have communicated. So, how do you know? The best way to confirm that you have communicated is to have the patient repeat back to you–in their own words–what you told them.

“Listening” is a significant problem for some doctors. Take this quick three-question test to assess your listening skills and then fix any problems you find.

1. Do you find yourself interrupting patients?

2. Do you look at patients in the eyes while they are talking or do you use that time to chart notes?

3. Do you respond to what patients are telling you or do you find yourself uninterested and needing to move on to another topic?

Appearing “unhurried” is an important patient communication skill. Have you trained yourself and your staff how to make sure that every patient feels they are receiving complete care in an unhurried manner–even when you are running late?

The bottom line is: Do you know how your patients feel about your communication skills? If you want to know the truth, then you must ask them in a way the patient feels the answer is anonymous. If the patient feels you will be able to identify the answer they give with their name, most often they will not be truthful. Since the patient’s perception is reality, we need to know the patient’s perceptions. Here are questions you can ask–in an anonymous survey–based on the focus group’s results.

For each of the areas below, please circle the answer that best reflects your experience during your most current exam for each person.

1 = Excellent, no improvement needed

2 = Good, could use some improvement

3 = Poor, needs significant improvement

Doctor

Receptionist

Optician

Explained results

1 2 3

1 2 3

1 2 3

Questions answered

1 2 3

1 2 3

1 2 3

Listens

1 2 3

1 2 3

1 2 3

Unhurried

1 2 3

1 2 3

1 2 3

Professionalism

1 2 3

1 2 3

1 2 3

Understandable

1 2 3

1 2 3

1 2 3

Knowledgeable

1 2 3

1 2 3

1 2 3

So, what is our Action Plan today?

1. Give the above survey in such a way as your patients can respond anonymously about the communication skills of the doctors and staff in your practice.

2. Identify any difficulties and create a plan to fix them.

3. After implementation of the plan, re-ask your patients to see if a positive change occurred.

Continue this cycle until you are satisfied with the communication skills being used in your practice.

 

To Top
Subscribe Today for Free...
And join more than 35,000 optometric colleagues who have made Review of Optometric Business their daily business advisor.