Pop Quiz: What is the key to getting more patient referrals at your practice?
A. Healing the ailments your patients came to you to fix
B. Increasing your practice’s focus on patient care
C. Keeping patients happy…even when they’re not at your office
D. All the above
If you chose “D”…congratulations…you get a gold star for the day! Patient referrals most often come from happy, satisfied patients created by a variety of efforts and factors at your office – from a smiling receptionist to the correct diagnosis by the practitioner. But if you work in the medical records department, how can you help this effort? When it comes to medical records fulfillment, there are easy ways to contribute to increased patient satisfaction. Here are a few tips:
Outsource Release of Information
Redistributing records request fulfillment workflows to an outside provider using your existing EHR system frees up staff time so you can increase focus on patients and patient related activities. “All medical offices are short on resources and on time—they are busy—and often times in a busy office, the patient experience can suffer as a result. By focusing on process improvements like ROI, staff can be freed up to focus their efforts on the most essential part of the medical office puzzle—the patient,” said Jamie Verkamp, Managing Partner of eMerge, the leading expert in healthcare patient satisfaction. ScanSTAT Technologies can take the release of information burden off your plate so you can spend more time creating happier patients.
Process Records Requests Daily
As healthcare providers know, timely responses to patient requests for their records or information are crucial to maintaining a happy patient/physician relationship. However, with many medical record copy services, practices find that their service contract is limited to specific days of the week, much like a milkman or laundry delivery service. In this model, a patient or healthcare provider may have to wait an inordinate amount of time for the copy service to fulfill a request. Clearly this scenario can have a very negative impact on patient satisfaction.
ScanSTAT eROI eliminates lag time for record requests by processing all new requests on a daily basis. Rather than waiting for a copy service to make an on-site visit or leaving it to an in-house staff member to prioritize this mundane task over all the items in the triage pile, our clients have the benefit of daily fulfillment from ScanSTAT leading to happier patients and increased customer satisfaction ratings.
Reduce Call Volumes & Time on Hold
Another benefit to using a trusted third party to handle your release of information workflows is a significant drop in call volumes to your office. Rapid response to patient record requests reduces the number of frustrated patient, or attorney, or insurance company calls to your office checking in on the status of their requests. It also means less hold time for the rest of your patients when they call your office other reasons.
These tips are easy to implement and can increase the number of happy patients who are likely to refer their friends and family to your office. Talk to ScanSTAT about our electronic release of information services to find out how you can start improving patient satisfaction using your existing resources today.