Challenge

With more information than ever before made readily available by the Internet, a new breed of patients has emerged with strong opinions about their oral health needs, treatment options, expectations for care, and demands for quality information.

The upside for dental practices is that information-seeking patients tend to be more engaged in their oral health, compliant with treatment, and interested in establishing a routine source of care.

The challenge is that these patients increasingly want evidence that they are purchasing high quality care - desire further heightened by uncertain economic times when they are spending less, in general.

To be successful in the current climate, practices must find practical and effective ways to show patients the value of the care they provide - that it is appropriate to their needs, essential for their health, and worth the cost; particularly when care requires out-of-pocket payment.

Solution

Implement a patient satisfaction program at your practice. By providing patients with a systematic way to give feedback on their experience you will demonstrate your commitment to understanding and meeting their needs and your commitment to quality improvement. Here are a few key suggestions:

Keep it simple. Implementing a patient satisfaction program does not need to be labor-intensive for your staff. Look to work with a third party vendor who can take care of collecting the data from patients, crunching the numbers, and generating reports so you can focus on patient care.

Peer-group comparisons. Work with a vendor that uses a baseline set of standardized questions in its patient satisfaction surveys and combines your patients’ responses with others to produce peer-group comparisons. With this perspective you can quickly see how your team excels relative to others and where to focus for improvement.

Tell them about it. Use the evidence in your performance reports to differentiate yourself from other practices. Tell patients how you excel. Let them know your future performance goals. Engage them on specific areas of concern. Make it easy for them to see the value of the care you provide.

Reap the rewards. With a satisfaction program not only are you empowered to show the value of the care you provide to patients, you reap the rewards that come with improving patient satisfaction scores: treatment compliance, likelihood to recommend, likelihood to return, increased referrals, and happy staff.

Get started today.

Dentra’s online solution, Patient Satisfaction (PatSat), makes it easy to cultivate a quality culture at your practice, generate the evidence patients want, and empower your team to succeed in meeting your patients’ expectations for high quality care.

Contact us today to learn more.
Learn how Dentra can help your practice increase patient satisfaction, productivity and profitability call 866.200.9220 or email info@dentra.com.