Embracing the Rise of Patient Centricity

Published in Member Communities on October 19, 2021

By Nupura Kolwalkar, Chief Product Officer, Brightree

Breaking news: Your patients are changing. You may notice their behaviors are becoming much more consumer-like. And with this, they are looking for healthcare experiences that match suit with their consumer experiences, whether tracking a pizza delivery from the oven to their doorstep or making an instant online money transfer.

The pandemic has undoubtedly had an impact on these expectations, as it accelerated the use of digital workflows across industries. Now, patients are increasingly looking for a convenient, transparent, and personalized healthcare experience, from booking an on-the-spot telehealth appointment to tracking delivery of their medical equipment.

Patient-Centric Care is better for providers

The logistics behind providing this level of service can seem overwhelming for providers, especially after the turbulence of 2020. But patient-centric care is not just better for patients, it’s better for providers as well. Positive patient experiences foster greater patient loyalty, remove friction from the provider-patient relationship and can even impact profitability.

Revamping the Patient Experience

There’s an opportunity to engineer patient success at every level of operations. Take the first interaction with a new patient—it’s an opportunity to establish transparency and gain trust right out of the gate. With consumer trust in our healthcare system on the decline, building transparency and proactive communication into the patient experience is vital.

An important first step is letting patients know you received an order from their clinician and asking if they’d like to receive further updates. If they choose yes, determine how they’d like to receive them, whether via email or text. Establishing your patients’ preferences at the start of your relationship will allow you to tailor their experience and offer the personalized attention patients today are looking for.

You can also use this opportunity to encourage your patients to sign up for convenient billing features like auto-pay and saving a card on file. This creates a smoother experience for patients and your billing department, as it removes the hassle of patient collections.

Once that first order is out the door, follow through by sharing tracking information and updates if your patients chose to receive them. This transparency builds trust before an order even arrives and helps create the low-stress, low-effort experience patients crave.

ask for feedback

Periodically ask for feedback and build in emotional touchpoints that go beyond order logistics. This shows your patients their care is centered around them, not just what occurs at your office. For example, check in ahead of upcoming appointments, remind them of resupply orders, and follow up to see how patients are doing with the new equipment or medication. Staying involved in every level of your patients’ care journey creates the personalized experience they are looking for and builds loyalty, trust, and engagement.

Putting Patient-Centric Care into Practice

This might seem like a lot of work—and frankly, it would be without the help of technology and automation.

The best technology providers have been anticipating these shifts toward consumerism and patient-centric care long before the pandemic arrived, and they have crafted solutions that allow providers to create the world-class digital experience explained above.

If you’re in the market or interested in evaluating your current solution, inquire about technology that employs:

A multi-channel communication strategy to ensure effective, early-stage patient communications. This includes features like a patient portal, mobile apps, digital reminders, and automated phone call solutions that allow you to personalize, and still automate, your patient communications.
Intuitive patient-facing communication tools, such as the patient portal mentioned above, so patients are empowered to initiate conversations with their providers, choose if they’d like to receive alerts/updates, and proactively track orders.
Integrated patient management tools to automate resupply, updates, alerts, and reminders using a range of outreach methods to best fit patients’ needs.

Thoughtful digital solutions incorporating these key features will allow you to foster a sense of patient control and build trust through financial transparency, emotional touchpoints, and feedback loops, while streamlining operations so you’re able to do more with less. This engineering of patient success into your operations will allow you to meet the consumer-like expectations of patients today and stand far above your competition tomorrow.

This article was originally featured in the VGM Playbook: How Serving Your Customer Serves You. To the full article and more articles like this, download your copy of the playbook today!