Strategic Planning for Patient Satisfaction

Next year, mandatory patient satisfaction surveys go into effect that are going to help the CMS benchmark and analyze your medical practice performance. Even though 2016 is only a few weeks old, it’s never too early to start planning for 2017. Here are two strategic planning tips to help you prepare for the surveys and lock in better patient satisfaction scores.

Prioritize patient-centered care\]

Strategic planning begins with evaluating your practice from your patient’s point of view. If you can pinpoint what makes your patients unhappy, you can implement strategies to fix it–before it shows up in a poor survey result. Think about what makes patients frustrated with your service. Some common culprits are:

• Filling out forms
• Long wait times
• Lack of communication
• Waiting to get test results

There are two key areas where you can improve your practice to keep your patients happy, become more efficient, and improve those survey responses. First, focus on practice management strategies that will streamline the check-in process for your patients. Next, take advantage of technology that gives your patients the ability to securely communicate with you and improves their access to medical information.

Streamline check-in

Streamlining the check-in process is a good place to start. Create a strategic plan to make your front desk operations as convenient as possible. AdvancedMD has several timesaving solutions to eliminate the bottlenecks that happen when your staff has to search for patient insurance, billing, and personal information. AdvancedPatient includes a kiosk for completing patient forms and speeding up check-in with:

• One-click display of patient demographic information for quick review & verification
• eEligibility that automatically confirms patient insurance coverage prior to the appointment
• An iPad check-in kiosk for patients to securely read, edit & sign documents & forms
• Completed forms are automatically added to the patient’s chart; no scanning required

Improve access to medical information

Your strategic plan should include offering your patients a secure, convenient online portal to improve communication and management of their medical information. The AdvancedMD patient portal is integrated with our EHR and PM suite to deliver a unified solution that maximizes staff time and productivity. A patient portal will boost your patient satisfaction by offering a convenient, secure way to:

• Send messages
• Schedule appointments
• Complete forms & sign documents
• Request prescription refills
• Make payments

With the mandatory reporting of patient satisfaction scores only one year away, it’s never too early to create a strategy for keeping your patients happy in 2016. Learn how a little strategic planning now will pave the way to more patient satisfaction, a better front office experience, and high scores for quality care in the New Year. Download the exclusive AdvancedMD eBook, 2016: The Year You Make a Strategic Plan.