In 2012, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) implemented pay-for-performance programs and started giving financial incentives to healthcare providers with high patient satisfaction ratings. These ratings are determined by the HCAHPS (Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems) survey, which questions patients about the level of care they receive.
Hospitals and other healthcare providers have set out to find new, innovative ways to increase patient satisfaction scores and reap financial benefits. In addition to recommendations in a Q2 2015 The Source article, here are three more ideas.
1. Improve patients’ overall experience.
Make their entire experience a priority, Becker’s Hospital Review suggests. While finding a firmer pillow may seem like a trivial task to an employee, that small favor may make the difference between a low or high HCAHPS score. Go the extra mile to make patients comfortable, and keep them educated about their treatment. Be sure to acknowledge and respect their time, too. Many HCAHPS survey questions ask patients about the amount of time they spend waiting to be admitted, seen and discharged. Low patient satisfaction scores are correlated with long wait times, according to Becker’s.
2. Encourage employee engagement.
The Advisory Board found that healthcare staff who are willing to go above and beyond the call of duty for the organization are likely to do the same for patients as well. In fact, a 2015 survey from the group found that a patient’s willingness to recommend a hospital increases when employees are more engaged in their jobs.
How do you get your employees to participate more? Give your staff a voice in the decisions that involve them, supply your employees with the needed equipment to do their jobs and hire enough employees to cover the workload, the Advisory Board recommends. Encourage your employees to think of their jobs as having a higher purpose; strong employees understand their purpose in the organization.
3. Set the bar high.
Too often, healthcare providers only compare themselves to other healthcare providers. However, doing this—and only this—sets the bar too low. Ultimately, patients are customers and their expectations of quality customer service don’t disappear when they enter a hospital, writes Micah Solomon in an article for Forbes. Look to companies in other industries that provide the highest quality of customer service. What are their strategies? What do they do differently? How do they interact with their customers? When setting the standards for employees, consider the standards of other companies outside of healthcare.
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