What Makes for Good Customer Service in the Medical Field?

The medical industry can have overwhelming effects on people who are blindly navigating the health care system. Not only does the medical field have its own special language, but patients can practically drown in the amount of paperwork that is handed to them. As such, having excellent customer service in the medical field is of crucial importance.

Breaking it Down

• The health care field is full of medical jargon and pharmacological terminology. The words, acronyms and phrases that exist in the medical field are not common to everyday conversational lingo. Medical companies can begin their quest to provide good customer service to patients by helping them understand what everything means. Having cheat sheets for medical terms might be a good thing to pass out to patients at their appointments, or post on the company’s website. The more familiar patients are with the medical language, the more comfortable they will feel communicating with their doctors and other health care personnel.

Resource Tools

• Patients don’t always know where to turn to when they need assistance, have questions or just want someone to talk to. As such, providing resource tools to patients is another way to provide excellent customer service skills. By giving patients information with phone numbers to call for questions, as well as lists of community resources or support groups in the area, patients can feel like they are being supported.

Educational Tools

• In a 2006 article for Healthcare Financial Management Association, David C. Hammer explains that patients may be unfamiliar with how the medical field works, and how to steer through the multiple systems. As such, providing educational tools to patients can help them understand how things work. Items like pamphlets or handbooks about their medical conditions can be a nice customer service touch that a company offers their patients.

Accessibility

• Being accessible to help satisfy patients’ needs is an important customer service quality for a medical company to possess. This includes offering a 24 hour emergency phone line, as well as being available throughout the day to take patients’ calls. Accessibility can also apply to the availability that doctors have to see their patients. If doctors are accessible, this can enhance the customer service experience that a patient has with a medical clinic.

Easy Billing

• Easier billing processes that require less paperwork on the patient’s part can be a valuable customer service skill to offer. According to an update by IBM, the health care field is developing ways to help patients manage their medical bills with more ease. Some companies are setting up web-based, electronic billing systems that can keep track of patients’ medical expenses, help them monitor what they owe or see their outstanding amount. These systems help patients get answers to their medical bills, as well as improve their overall experience.