Management Essentials

A Personal Touch Moves You Ahead of the Pack

By Farrell “Toby” Tyson, MD, FACS

How may times have you called a colleague’s office only to hear a recording — “If this is an emergency please hang up and dial 911. If you are a doctor, press 1. If you need to speak to billing, press 2 …” — and so on? On first thought, I want to tell the doctor the impression that this gives me and, likely, to his or her patients. On the other hand, I was taught to not stand in the way of the successes or failures of others. In neither case is it appreciated. The real question is: How many patients does this impersonal technology drive away?

An Appointment Is Not a Meeting

Technology has been a great driver of productivity over the last century. This productivity, however, comes at a cost. Our practices may be able to cut payroll short term. This is the rationale for systems such as automated voicemail and robo-appointment callers.

Vendors have pushed these systems as ways to streamline an office, but they don’t take into account that medicine, at its core, is a compassionate and personal profession. When calling a doctor for an appointment, it is not the same as scheduling a business transaction. It is time set aside to evaluate and discuss one of the most precious aspects of life: vision.

If a practice does not have enough time, patience and caring to have a real, live person answer its phones, what would give patients the impression they are going to be treated any better on the day of the appointment? Most patients understand this. By the time a new patient gets to the second option on a voicemail system, she may have hung up and started searching for a different physician. In this case, the technology will have drastically reduced your payroll expenses because you no longer need as many staff members due to a declining patient load.

Consider Your Patients’ Demographics

Robo-call systems, cousins of voicemail, are a new form of automation making its way into medical practices. These systems automatically evaluate your appointment schedule and call patients to confirm upcoming appointments. This sounds like a great benefit by freeing up staff to do other tasks.

The problem, however, lies in our patient demographics. Most of our patients are elderly and have difficulty hearing. The chance that their message gets delivered accurately is poor at best. Indirectly, this could lead to more calls to the office by frustrated patients looking for clarification. Imagine how you treated robo-calls during this past election cycle. Consider your patients may treat them the same way.

A Premium Experience

Answering phones and interacting with patients through a real, live person can be one of your best marketing tools. Shareef Mahdavi, a strategic marketing expert specializing in ophthalmic devices, loves to speak of the “premium experience.” His central message is every patient encounter is a chance to exceed patient expectations and, therefore, drive word-of-mouth to grow a practice. Only careful staff selection and doctor involvement can accomplish this.

The person answering the phone needs to be personable, trained in all aspects of the practice, and know what she does not know and when and where to find the answers. This is not an entry-level position. Remember, this person will be the ambassador of your practice. This employee needs to be able to make a good first impression.

While this seems to be a very simple subject, it is usually the little things that make the biggest difference in a practice. Luckily, most of your competitors have set the bar very low in terms of patient interactions. Because Medicare pays the same for patients to see any participating physician, selection often depends on the patient experience. Think of it this way: If you had a choice between a two-star and a five-star hotel for the same price, where would you stay? OM

Farrell C. Tyson, MD, FACS, is a refractive cataract/glaucoma eye surgeon at the Cape Coral Eye Center in Florida. He may be reached at tysonfc@hotmail.com.