What providers can do to improve the patient experience.
© greenbutterfly - stock.adobe.com
Patients are increasingly looking for their healthcare providers to deliver the type of convenient and easy-to-use digital tools that they have come to depend on in industries like retail, banking, and groceries. At the same time, patients have grown more aware of – and increasingly dissatisfied with - healthcare’s digital deficiencies, which often create a time-consuming, confusing, and overly complicated experience. Too often, providers are unable to offer the flexibility and transparency that patients rely on from other suppliers of goods and services.
Consumers have embraced the speed and convenience of online retailers like Amazon and Wayfair, and now expect the same experience from their healthcare providers. Adding to patient demands for a more consumer-like approach to healthcare consumption is the proliferation of high-deductible health plans and growing concerns about medical debt.
For provider organizations, among the most significant implications of consumerization involves “a broad shift in focus from the healthcare market as a whole to individual healthcare consumers,” according to consulting firm Mercer. Often, that starts with providing digital patient engagement and payment tools that enable patients to have the type of flexible and user-friendly experiences they get elsewhere in their day-to-day lives.
Greater patient satisfaction, higher volumes
In healthcare, these digital tools give patients the ability to self-schedule appointments, take advantage of modern payment options, obtain pre-service cost estimates, and gain greater flexibility when paying for high-cost bills.
Following are four digital engagement and payment tools that providers can adopt to deliver more transparency and convenience and improve the patient experience.
The retail industry may be ahead of healthcare in adopting flexible digital engagement and payment tools, but most providers have begun to realize the importance of catering to their patients’ consumer demands. Providers who can distinguish themselves from their peers by delivering a superior, more transparent, retail-like consumer experience have the potential to drive greater patient satisfaction and even higher patient volumes.
Ryne Natzke is Chief Revenue Officer at TrustCommerce, a Sphere Company.
Optimize your practice with the Physicians Practice newsletter, offering management pearls, leadership tips, and business strategies tailored for practice administrators and physicians of any specialty.