Among the many provisions of the Affordable Care Act is a new focus on patient satisfaction. The bill ties provider reimbursements from Medicare to their ability to maintain high levels of patient satisfaction, which is seen as one of the drivers of quality care.
And as the cornerstone of many hospitals and physician practices, radiology services play a major role in patient satisfaction. While it’s virtually impossible to make everyone happy every time, there are several tactics that radiology departments and practices can use to ensure patients feel they have received quality care.
Identify the Right Satisfaction Drivers
The first step to improving patient satisfaction is to know what makes patients happy about your service. Understanding your patients’ expectations, and what causes them to complain, will help you more effectively develop an improvement plan. There’s no sense in investing a great amount of time, energy and money into improving aspects of your practice that are already working well. Plus, making assumptions about what your patients expect can backfire on you. You can identify the most relevant drivers via surveys and comments during office visits; you can then prioritize your improvement efforts to address the most significant concerns or themes.
Create a Satisfaction Plan
Without a comprehensive plan for improving patient satisfaction, you will have a difficult time determining whether you’ve been successful in your efforts or whether it’s time to make additional adjustments. Using the results of surveys, determine the current state of patient satisfaction and where you would like to be. For example, if your patient satisfaction ratings currently average three out of five stars, a reasonable goal would be to raise that ranking to four out of five stars in six months. With a goal in mind and knowledge of what’s making your patients unhappy, you can then design an action plan to address those issues and gain the support of key stakeholders in the organization.
Use Teleradiology to Build Volume
One of the most common complaints among patients about radiology departments, from both patients and physicians, is the amount of time it takes to process images and report results. Particularly in hospitals, where radiology volume can fluctuate significantly in a matter of minutes, it can be difficult to accurately determine staffing needs on a day-to-day basis. That’s why implementing teleradiology services and using the capabilities of qualified professionals who offer accurate readings at any time of day or night can make a significant difference in your satisfaction ratings. Rather than waiting up to several hours for in-house radiologists to get to their images, patients can have answers sooner. Doctors can then develop treatment plans more quickly and efficiently.
Work With Staff
Because patient satisfaction often comes down to the staff, and specifically interactions with staff, it’s important to include them in the planning process and provide training in the action items you’re implementing. It may also be helpful to conduct staff observations, watching interactions between patients and staff to determine any areas that are a cause for concern and providing feedback — or corrective action — when necessary. However, remember that it’s important to get your staff’s feedback and input into any new processes or initiatives. Educate them on the need to make changes, but allow them to provide insight into why things are the way they are. Your staff is on the front lines and can alert you to problems or processes that are impacting satisfaction that you may have not even thought of yet.
Improve Communication
Finally, communication is the cornerstone of any patient satisfaction improvement initiative. In many cases, patients cite a lack of communication, or how people communicate, as a reason for their dissatisfaction with a particular provider or practice. You could be the most accomplished and competent radiologist in the world, but if you are rude or unpleasant to patients, it will be reflected in your satisfaction scores. For that reason, include communication initiatives in your improvement plan and brainstorm ways you can more effectively communicate with your staff and your patients.
With so much riding on patients’ perceptions of their care, it’s important to make patient satisfaction a top priority. Listen to your patients and address their concerns, and you should see a significant increase in the number of people who feel your services are of the highest quality.
About the Author: Darren Dodge is the director of business development for ONRAD, Inc.