3 Quick Tips to Easily Strengthen Your Patient Relationship

The relationship you have with your patient is undeniably important. Sometimes, the most challenging obstacle you may face as a physician is establishing a strong connection with your patient. A solid patient-provider relationship provides more meaningful learning opportunities about a patient’s unique health needs. This encourages providers to better connect with their patients with the treatment and resources to improve healthcare.

What Can ASCs Do Today to Improve the Patient Relationship?

Provide Personable Communication

At one point in your life, you may have been in the same position as your patient, receiving a diagnosis or having a procedure performed. Your experiences may not be identical, but you can relate to how your patient feels and their questions and concerns. Patients often feel they are being judged; therefore, they hide pieces of their medical history to spare themselves embarrassment. Sometimes patients aren’t as transparent because they fear their physician will scold them. Being personable and relatable improves the trust in your relationship with your patients and encourages your patient to be truthful when discussing their health history.

This same level of personable communication should be applied to all mediums of patient communication, including the messages you send to your patients. Your patients are increasingly inundated with numerous robotic calls and generic messages from many different sources. They aren’t looking to receive one more robot call or non-specific message from their ASC. Your messages should make your patients feel more like a person and less like a box you can check off. Create customized messages to your patients when time permits. Even small details, such as addressing someone by name, can have a significant impact.

Embrace New Communication Channels

There are many avenues by which you can communicate with your patients. Mailing, email, and phone calls were once the primary channels used to communicate with patients. Today, we constantly see patients with their mobile device(s), and most patients prefer almost all means of communication to be digital. It is vital to embrace new ways of communication. Having a range of channels by which you can reach your patients ensures a higher probability they will receive the message and respond. You may find it beneficial to ask your patient, “How do you prefer to be contacted?”. Your surgery center team might be surprised by what they uncover.

Be Transparent

Patients often feel more comfortable going in for their procedure when they know what to expect. Whichever communication channel you implement, your message must remain open, honest, and helpful to your patients. Patients want to avoid showing up on the date of service and learn their procedure is canceled, or they have a payment due. They want to receive as much information as possible before they arrive, even as early as weeks prior. They may want to know:

• What is my financial responsibility?
• Can I eat before my procedure?
• What preparations do I need to make?
• Do I need a ride home?

These types of questions and more should be answered before the patient’s procedure. Providing individualized communication and being transparent about what your patient should and should not do will quickly give your patients a better overall experience with your surgery center.

Start Connecting With Patients

Given the current staffing shortages impacting many ASCs, your front-office staff may find it a real challenge to communicate with your patients in a personalized way due to a lack of bandwidth. With HST Patient Engagement, an ASC-centric solution for an online pre-assessment process and patient texting, you can provide your surgery center team with a powerful and easy way to communicate effectively with patients. One of the best components of HST Patient Engagement is its customizable and automated 2-way patient texting capabilities, empowering your front-office staff with a manageable and scalable way to take your patient communication to the next level. If your ASC is ready to say goodbye to manual and impersonal patient communication, explore HST Patient Engagement and discover how your surgery center team can leverage its customizable patient texting to strengthen your patient relationships.