There has been a lot of discussion among providers about patient experience management (PEM), some on social media, and even less on Social CRM (S-CRM). Seemingly missing from that discussion is a conversation addressing why those initiatives are so important.
It is a little like knowing you should have more fiber in your diet. Most people know they should eat more fiber, but few of them are able to answer why.
I am willing to bet the last communication most hospitals had with their patients—other than something about their bill—was the day the patient was discharged. When was that—one year ago, five years?
The world has changed. Customers have changed. All businesses have changed the relationship between themselves and their customers. With few exceptions, hospitals have not changed their approach to their customers, and nobody seems to own up as to why.
The way the business model used to work—and still does for many hospitals—is the business would push communication from the business to the customer. Most businesses were late to the party, but they evolved to the point where communication between the business and the customer became a push-pull model. The business pushes something to the customer, sometimes the customer initiates the contact—pulling information, and sometimes the customer pushes information to the business.
This push-pull of information caused the business to open up and to become a little more proactive. Most pushes and pulls function on a one-to-one basis; the business to a single customer (patient), and back. It occurs in secret. Customer A was never aware of the push-pull between the business and Customer B.
The days of wine and roses are over. Communication is no longer secret. In fact, it is anything but secret. Take a look at the diagram. Let us assign the ‘red’ person to represent the hospital. The little lines between each person are lines of communication. As the number of individuals increases, the communication goes quickly viral—not between patients and the hospital, but among patients.
The other thing to note is that most of these communications are not positive. It has been shown that every satisfied customer will tell one person, and every dissatisfied person will tell at least ten others. It is like the brain teaser that asks if you would rather have a million dollars, or a penny placed on the first square of a checker board, two on the second, four on the third, and so forth through sixty-four squares. Exponentiality can be a funny thing. When it comes to disseminating bad information, there is nothing funny about it.
If all a hospital does with PEM or S-CRM is react to spin after it happens, it may get more benefit from repainting the white lines on the parking lot. These tools do not have to be expensive. The cost of the tools is certainly a lot less than the cost of not having the tools.
That takes us to ‘how; how might one begin to approach using these tools to enhance the business? Let’s begin by looking at what you may wish to achieve. If it is true that many of the external conversations taking place may not be favorable towards the institution, the practice needs a way to learn what patients and employees are saying, and then initiate conversations to either correct any misunderstandings, or to negate the impact of those conversations. Unfortunately, the effort can be a little like trying to take a drop of ink out of a glass of water.
One of the easiest ways to learn what may be being said about your hospital is to track the reasons why people call the hospital—call reason codes; forms, bills, scheduling, insurance, prescriptions. These codes then become your project list for improving patient satisfaction, decreasing the number of inbound calls, and stopping some of the negative chatter on the web.
If all a hospital does with PEM or S-CRM is react to spin after it happens, it may get more benefit from repainting the white lines on the parking lot. These tools do not have to be expensive. The cost of the tools is certainly a lot less than the cost of not having the tools.
That takes us to ‘how; how might one begin to approach using these tools to enhance the business? Let’s begin by looking at what you may wish to achieve. If it is true that many of the external conversations taking place may not be favorable towards the institution, the practice needs a way to learn what patients and employees are saying, and then initiate conversations to either correct any misunderstandings, or to negate the impact of those conversations. Unfortunately, the effort can be a little like trying to take a drop of ink out of a glass of water.
One of the easiest ways to learn what may be being said about your hospital is to track the reasons why people call the hospital—call reason codes; forms, bills, scheduling, insurance, prescriptions. These codes then become your project list for improving patient satisfaction, decreasing the number of inbound calls, and stopping some of the negative chatter on the web.
Google your hospital and see what patients are saying about you. Then Google it and see what you are saying about yourselves. You will get hundreds of hits regaling your organization, and I’m willing to bet you will find very few hits were the organization has said something good about itself. If you want to see an example, check out this link about Temple Hospital from a piece titled, “Temple Hospital Gags Nurses, Endangering Patients.” http://ow.ly/2qKBa This article was the fourth URL after I Googled the phrase, “patient remarks about temple hospital”. I was not able to find a rebuttal from Temple. If your hospital is like Temple, you are losing the war of social dialog.
As an example, many of those reasons will have to do with billing and payments; disputes, illegible bills, payor questions, duplicate bills, unposted payments. Have the CSRs track the numbers of those types of calls, categorize them, and figure out how to either make the calls go away—i.e. solve the problems before they happen, or design an easier way for the patient to get the information they need.
When was the last time you actually studied one of your bills? If it was handed to you at discharge, or mailed to your house, would you understand it? What would it take to place a copy of bill on your website, and add simple popup explanations when the mouse moves across various fields?
Claims are another big area. Patients would rather have a root canal than call their insurance company about their bill. Why not help them? How? Start some chats. Prepare podcasts or YouTube videos on your largest payors. Include the same info on your web site, and give patients information telling them how to access this material.
Using social media, tell patients how the claims process works, how you get paid, how patient claims are decided, and how to handle disputes. Even if you do this, you are still trying to put the toothpaste back into the tube. This is because neither the hospital nor the patient knows what they will be charged until after the fact, and by then it is too late.
Imagine the patient in the hospital bed asking if they need more pain medication. Some patients are thinking “is this covered”, “I’m in pain, but do I really want to be charged an extra $125?” What would it take to be able to give the patient a high-level summarized breakdown of costs before they are admitted, and have the categories show what may not be covered under their insurance.
All of these problems can either be fixed, or mitigated. Develop a plan to use social media to DO something that benefits the organization, better yet be proactive and lead the conversation.
Google your hospital and see what patients are saying about you. Then Google it and see what you are saying about yourselves. You will get hundreds of hits regaling your organization, and I’m willing to bet you will find very few hits were the organization has said something good about itself. If you want to see an example, check out this link about Temple Hospital from a piece titled, “Temple Hospital Gags Nurses, Endangering Patients.” http://ow.ly/2qKBa This article was the fourth URL after I Googled the phrase, “patient remarks about temple hospital”. I was not able to find a rebuttal from Temple. If your hospital is like Temple, you are losing the war of social dialog.
As an example, many of those reasons will have to do with billing and payments; disputes, illegible bills, payor questions, duplicate bills, unposted payments. Have the CSRs track the numbers of those types of calls, categorize them, and figure out how to either make the calls go away—i.e. solve the problems before they happen, or design an easier way for the patient to get the information they need.
When was the last time you actually studied one of your bills? If it was handed to you at discharge, or mailed to your house, would you understand it? What would it take to place a copy of bill on your website, and add simple popup explanations when the mouse moves across various fields?
Claims are another big area. Patients would rather have a root canal than call their insurance company about their bill. Why not help them? How? Start some chats. Prepare podcasts or YouTube videos on your largest payors. Include the same info on your web site, and give patients information telling them how to access this material.
Using social media, tell patients how the claims process works, how you get paid, how patient claims are decided, and how to handle disputes. Even if you do this, you are still trying to put the toothpaste back into the tube. This is because neither the hospital nor the patient knows what they will be charged until after the fact, and by then it is too late.
Imagine the patient in the hospital bed asking if they need more pain medication. Some patients are thinking “is this covered”, “I’m in pain, but do I really want to be charged an extra $125?” What would it take to be able to give the patient a high-level summarized breakdown of costs before they are admitted, and have the categories show what may not be covered under their insurance.
All of these problems can either be fixed, or mitigated. Develop a plan to use social media to DO something that benefits the organization, better yet be proactive and lead the conversation.
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