Patient experiences are what drives patient satisfaction, which is a key indicator for the success and growth of a healthcare business. But many healthcare businesses make improving patient experiences secondary or even tertiary goals and hardly try to prioritize the improvement of patient experiences themselves.

Introduction

As customers, we judge a business’ service through the experiences we have. A poor customer experience is likely not going to result in recurrent patronage of a business while at the same time a great customer experience can even overcome some pitfalls in other areas of the business. 

The same is also true of patients. Patients today are paying large sums of money to have their healthcare needs taken care of and thus, want to be treated just like a customer would be in any other industry or service. 

The healthcare industry has begun to recognize the fact that patients are indeed paying customers and the industry needs to reorient itself as a service-related industry. But for many healthcare businesses, a reorientation hasn’t emerged in the goals that they are setting for themselves. 

Patient experiences today are a critical measure of success, outcomes, and more for any business in the healthcare industry. Patient experiences directly impact the satisfaction of a patient – good experiences lead to higher satisfaction and bad experiences lead to lower satisfaction. 

Third-party-payers, government agencies, investors, and even prospective patients now check the patient satisfaction scores of hospitals through the CAHPS Hospital Survey or HCAHPS to understand how well a hospital or healthcare business is doing, from the perspective of their patients. 

In this environment, healthcare businesses need to realize that prioritizing their patient’s experience is the topmost concern.

Patient Experience

An adage that can be heard in many consumer-facing industries and segments, like retail and sales, is that the ‘customer is always right or the ‘customer is king’. While this can’t be adopted completely as it stands for the healthcare industry, businesses do need to realize that patients are not going to be ‘patient’ enough to remain passive about their healthcare as time goes on. 

Patients are consumers and want a say in their own healthcare journeys. This creates expectations in patients, apart from just getting better or being treated, which is what drives patient satisfaction. If a patient’s experience matches their expectations, they are satisfied. If it doesn’t, then a healthcare business loses not only that one patient but many others that the patient may inform about their experience.

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, one of twelve agencies within the United States Department of Health and Human Services, defines patient experience in the following manner as the totality of interactions that those undergoing care have with the healthcare organization, and the system as a whole. This includes health plans, doctors, nurses, staff, and more. The AHRQ states that patient experience includes different aspects of healthcare, all of which are highly valued by patients. 

To put it more simply, patient experience is how a patient feels at the end of the care journey. While simplistic, this definition allows healthcare businesses to understand what exactly patient experience is aiming to measure – the patient’s perspective of their healthcare journey.

Why they should be prioritized?

Patient satisfaction levels have a direct correlation with important factors like clinical outcomes, patient retention, and the likelihood of medical malpractice claims. Good patient experiences will consequently have an effect on patient retention and acquisition. 

Additionally, individuals are most likely to listen to the recommendations of their friends and families for healthcare providers. A single satisfied patient will promote the healthcare business and be a brand advisor to their families, friends, and more. 

However, at the same time, a single dissatisfaction presents a loss of hundreds of thousands of dollars not just by their business but through others that they influence. Healthcare providers are improving customer retention and customer acquisition by prioritizing patient experiences, and with each US healthcare customer spending over $10,000 in a year the financial incentives of doing so quickly add up. 

Providing great patient experiences is just one way of getting effective and free patient marketing.

Some of the benefits of enhancing patient experiences are:

Insulation from price change – patients remain loyal to a healthcare business despite any changes in prices

Higher Reimbursement – higher patient satisfaction levels lead to higher reimbursement through third-party payers, Medicare, and more

Higher morale – happier patients lead to higher morale and spirits in staff and providers

Patient experience best practices include measures like improving engagement with patients, promoting prevention, improving communication, and creating patient-focused systems.

Conclusion

Patient experiences today should be a key focus of the healthcare industry. Healthcare businesses should carefully take stock of the changing dynamics that patients have with businesses and try to ensure that patient experiences match up and even surpass their expectations. Doing so will lead to higher patient satisfaction rates, which will not only have financial but morale and growth benefits. 

However, just talking about prioritizing to improve patient satisfaction is easy, while achieving the same is harder. 

BraveLabs is working with healthcare and pharmaceutical businesses to help them improve their patient experiences through patient management tools, content management, and patient engagement. 

Bring your healthcare business to the digital age, contact BraveLabs today.