Hesitantly raising his hand, the medical student cleared his throat and prepared himself.
All eyes in the room were on him, and after answering the question they stayed there.
Even the physician faculty member was impressed. How did this young man already understand so much about the world of healthcare to come?
Think back to your own medical school days for a minute.
Maybe you only remember the intense grind during those years. Or you relate to this eager up and coming doctor.
Klaus Kessel, a 6th year Finnish medical student, offers pertinent insights that can improve patient satisfaction scores….interested?
Patient Satisfaction and Medical Student Lessons
This dual citizen (Finland and United States) recently shared an article on KevinMD.com.
Spending his first 5 school years in Estonia, he now is practicing medicine under the tutelage of a consultant.
He identified two main points worth covering:
- Realize your limits as a physician
- Learn to live with “near perfection”
Physician burnout is a real issue in the healthcare sector. The good news is there are ways to help yourself stay more balanced.
And who doesn’t like good news?
Decreasing your task load by 10% can reduce its risk by 33%, according to a study by The Joint Commission. This is easier said than done for your hospital based peers.
In some cases, purely business minded leaders dictate:
- Daily number of patients
- Health tech
- EMR company
- And more…
Yes your private practice does have some oversight with partners, but you still maintain more control over decision making.
So choose tools that give you less work, not more. Simple enough?
Moving on, let’s define “near perfection.”
An example from my world of digital marketing should hopefully help. My marketing mentor states, “It’s better to get it out there than waiting for perfection.”
This taught me to trust my business acumen and experience. Without sacrificing quality, I was able to increase my output.
In medical terms, this means making a decision and not second guessing it.
Trust your experience and best judgement! After all, the important thing is facilitating healing, not getting a high five for recommending a perfect care path.
Adopting these two lessons is sure to raise patient satisfaction as you experience more contentment yourself.
Ways To Improve Patient Satisfaction
Now that we developed tips to reduce any possible burnout, let’s look at some stats.
- 71% of prospective patients read online reviews when looking for a doctor, according to a survey from Software Advice
So keeping your patient satisfaction scores high needs to be a goal.
- 84% of patients say wait time is important to their overall experience at the doctor’s, according to PatientPop
We already talked about understanding your limits, and doing so yields two benefits:
- Consultations won’t feel rushed
- Office visits will be more meaningful
Both will give your scores a bump. And this bump affects compensation, so naturally it matters.
And did I mention a consequence of your efforts will be diminished wait times?
Since you now understand why these stats matter, let’s discuss implementation.
There are countless creative ways to increase patient satisfaction, but healthcare content writing is a great budget-friendly option.
How can it help, and why is it important?
- 89% of organizations rely on organic search as their most effective distribution channel, according to SEMRush
A search engine optimized website will include the keywords you want to rank for. One example is “San Francisco private practice” if your goal is a locally based advantage over competitors.
You have your webpages showing up in Google, but is there another way to accelerate rankings? Yes!
And one of the most effective ways to do this is through a dedicated blog on your medical website. Lead generation gets a shot in the arm from this strategy, and it can also bolster patient satisfaction!
Win, win, win…
As these heavily researched articles can be time consuming, a professional writer can and should factor in.
Plus I’m guessing you don’t have 4 extra hours in your week just laying around.
Patient Satisfaction and Elijah Wordsmith
To summarize, physician burnout is a real possibility unless you realize you’re not an inexhaustible resource. Handling everything yourself and expecting perfection is unrealistic.
Offload some of the heavy lifting when it comes to attracting new patients. Doing so will free you up to reflect on why you got into medicine in the first place.
Rediscover your passion and watch patient satisfaction increase!
My medical content writing business is backed by almost 13 years of industry experience between healthcare and digital marketing. Combining the two allows each original blog or social media post to resonate with your target audience.
Bring the human side back by sharing stories online that impacted you or your staff. And enjoy a boost in patient retention and new referrals for a “practice that truly cares.”
Take the first step towards standing out online and schedule a discovery call today!