Providing a good customer experience for patients has both a positive impact on their health outcomes as well as on a medical provider’s business. With rising medical and insurance costs, patients are looking for the best overall healthcare experience. More hospitals are hiring chief patient experience officers and teams of people to improve their HCAHPS scores, which are patient satisfaction surveys required by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services for all hospitals in the United States. By having a better understanding of what patients are looking for, medical providers stand to increase revenue through patient retention and deeper engagement.

Radiology is a service-oriented specialty driven through both patients and ordering providers. With traditionally less direct patient interaction, radiology practices are focusing on medical partners to grow their business and retain clients. As the practice of radiology has changed, there is more emphasis on making the patient the primary customer. Consumer-focused shifts include easier patient access to imaging results, providing translations of radiology reports that are easier to understand, and opening additional clinics so that the radiologist can communicate and connect directly with patients. Other things that patients are looking for include enhanced trust and confidence, reliable services and accurate results, willingness and ability to help customers promptly, a well-maintained facility and equipment, and time and attention given to each patient.

Improving the patient experience is critical for several reasons. It increases patient engagement because the better experience a patient has, the more proactive they will become in their healthcare. A focus on customer service directly affects your reputation and the feedback you receive, which can have a positive or negative impact on your patient retention and revenue. In addition to publishing reviews online, good word-of-mouth referrals are important because they can bring in new patients and business.

Insurance payers are also using the patient experience as a metric to assess the quality of care that organizations are providing, which in turn is changing the way that payers structure contractual agreements. As a result, partnerships between care facilities and payers based on these factors are becoming more evident in the industry and should be a focus of any radiology practice.

Utilizing the latest technology and creating a quality digital model can also help improve the customer experience and increase engagement. Calibrater Health is a company that uses artificial intelligence-powered tools to help healthcare organizations improve customer service and team culture to accelerate business growth. After every visit, patients are sent short surveys by text message, and the platform helps garner feedback for actionable insights that are targeted to the specific needs of a business. Another customer experience measurement system is the Enterprise Feedback Management System by Medallia, which captures real-time feedback from customers and highlights what is working and what isn’t. Having a website that is easy to navigate for patients creates a seamless experience and enables them to do a variety of things such as communicate with their provider, review results, and schedule or cancel appointments. Digital tools are critical for retaining clients throughout their care journey while creating efficiencies for the medical practice.

Billing is an area that medical facilities tend to have a persistent problem with and it’s an important one to focus on since the billing experience has a strong impact on overall patient satisfaction. Due to the complexities of healthcare system billing, patients have low expectations that bills will be accurate, in addition to a reduced sense of responsibility for paying them. There is a growing movement to extend patient advocacy services that help patients with the billing and insurance processes in order to improve revenue recovery and build patient loyalty.

Proactively measuring patients’ feedback on your customer service experience is a key component to building a successful radiology practice. One way to measure patients’ likelihood to recommend a medical facility is the Net Promoter Score, which many hospital executives are using. It’s widely used in both the business-to-consumer markets as well as the business-to-business markets, and provides a method for collecting feedback and applying it to improve the facility. It has also been found to be a strong predictor of overall financial health and is being used as an important metric to measure success of initiatives.

Improving and maintaining patient satisfaction has become increasingly important in the healthcare industry, as the patient experience has a direct impact on whether a patient will return to a medical facility in the future and recommend it to others. In turn, this effects an organization’s revenue, which can either lead to a decrease or increase in profit. Embracing digital tools and technology that drive patient engagement is the key to a thriving customer experience in the radiology field.