Ways to keep patients happy so they don’t leave the practice
We all want happy patients at our office. And it’s important to recognize reasons why patients may stop being patients when they’re unhappy.
Most new patients that come into the office start off with a positive mindset.
Usually something the doctor or the staff does after the patient has been in the office turns the patient’s thinking towards a negative mindset.
So, what are some of the things that we can look out for to help prevent this from happening?
6 ways to prevent patients leaving your practice
1.Don’t display negative emotions
One, be careful not to display negative emotions in the office.
Things like anger, stress, any type of rude behaviour will easily be remembered in a negative way by the patient.
2.Avoid long wait times
Avoid making patients wait for a long time. Patients who wait 15 minutes or more probably are going to remember negative feelings about the office.
3.Avoid covering up mistakes
We want to minimize mistakes, but the office should never alter records or hide anything.
If a mistake occurs, it should be admitted. Apologize and take responsibility.
Failure to share risks with the patient about dental procedures.
We always want ideal outcomes, but even if there’s a risk of something happening one out of a hundred times, if it fails 1% of the time for that particular patient, it’s a hundred percent failure for that person.
So they should be aware ahead of the procedure of all of the risks that are possible.
4.Don’t promise what you cannot deliver
Another concern is promising things and not delivering them. This could also be a staff member that frustrates a patient by committing to do something and then forgets it.
Whatever we promised the patient, we need to keep those promises.
5.Avoid mistakes with billing
Another issue is mistakes with billing. If there are extra fees on the bill or if there are collection procedures that are rudely worded, it can really upset a patient.
6.Communicate in a way the patient understands
Avoid making patients feel dumb. Some dental terms you use may come across as being more important than the patient.
So just be careful with the communications with the patient.
You never want the patient to feel dumb.
And also ignoring the patient, it’s always better to acknowledge the patient even if you’re on the phone at the front desk, you want to acknowledge the patient at the check-in.
Or if you see a patient passing in the hall, always acknowledge the patient.
So solutions to some of these problems can include learning from our mistakes.
Learning from our mistakes can improve the patient experience
When something goes wrong, learn from it.
Try to improve it in the future, really investigate what happened. Really try to learn what went wrong.
When the patient is upset, keep studying it until you really understand what the issue was, then resolve it.
Maybe you need to pay a small refund or you need to apologize to the patient.
But whatever’s necessary, take action to try to resolve the problem and then in the future, improve your systems.
Try to make new policies and new efforts of doing things in a better way so that those issues don’t happen again.