Practice Performance Data

Data collected from the Practice Performance Survey is very revealing. Medical practices are served well when they receive feedback from their patients.

Medical providers typically view the quality of medical care they provide as the only metric used by patients in evaluating their doctor. In contrast, most patients use a variety of metrics in the evaluation. Components such as price, access and quality are the metrics patients use to determine the value of the service provided.

Conducting a Practice Performance Survey gives us insight to the patient experience. For example, in survey that Primoro, Inc. is conducting, patients report that they use the telephone to make their appointments. The physician recently installed a telephone system to help direct patient inquiries. The system, one of those "Press 1 for this, Press 2 for that," has now created a sense of frustration for patients. The fact is, most patients, and the generally population, hate these systems. Customers much prefer to talk with a live person than to some machine.

With this survey data in hand, the practice is now positioned to create an alternative, more customer focused, telephone system. I generally recommend physicians hire an telephone operator to manage inbound calls. Most practices shutter at the overhead expense. This decision now becomes a choice between true customer service vs. an expense line on the P&L. I would argue that providing true customer service is always beneficial to the P&L.

Of course, all practices are different, with different needs. Thus, don't go out an hire a telephone operator without an office evaluation or Practice Performance Survey. Instead, consider conducting a survey to get your patient's feedback about your practice as your first step in providing better patient/customer service.