Bear with me. This introduction is not about a doctor-patient interaction. But, it will illustrate a core principle on “best practices” in asking patients for feedback or reviews. Actually, it will illustrate “worst practices.
I went to upgrade a phone with my carrier; a carrier that shall not be named – but it rhymes with lint. I had interacted with this customer service rep previously; an interaction that ending in my spending two hours on the phone with customer support addressing charges that never should have been billed. What a time-waster.
This time around, I again thought the service was poor.
I just wanted to leave. But no such luck. She said I’d be receiving a survey. She said “Can I count on you to say that I gave excellent service?” I should have just said no.
She was entirely oblivious to how she had treated me. My body language couldn’t have been more obvious if she had just been paying attention.
If these surveys are to mean anything, they don’t need to be prefaced with “Can I count on you to say that I gave excellent service?” How about something like “I hope I’ve met your expectations.”
Well, she didn’t like the answer I did give. Then she became confrontational. I asked that she “de-escalate” this back and forth. I think smoke was coming out of my ears.
Back to doctor-patient interactions. We advocate asking patients for feedback. Done properly, most of this information is constructive. Most patients like – even love – their doctors – and want their practices to succeed.
That said, the time to ask a patient to complete a survey is NOT when you see smoke coming out of their ears. The smoke is a subtle hint. Just fix their problem; exceed their expectations; ask again at a later date; and the response will be glowing. This is intuitive to most people. But, more and more frequently I see requests to post comments on the Internet – with the ask – “nothing but glowing comments, please.”
Knowing when and how to ask for feedback is as important as the feedback itself.
Bear with me. This introduction is not about a doctor-patient interaction. But, it will illustrate a core principle on “best practices” in asking patients for feedback or reviews. Actually, it will illustrate “worst practices.”
As a practicing dermatologist who has gotten very helpful negative criticism from patients that helped me address my problem areas and become a better doctor, I wonder if there is any place for saying something like, “I know things weren’t perfect today, but I truly do care and work to give my patients great medical care. Please give me feedback– anonymously is fine– on today’s visit so that I know what to do better in the future.” I think communicating in this way to patients assures them the physician does care about them (which is critical to how they perceive the physician) but also may elicit helpful information about the doctor or the doctor’s practice that can identify areas to change/improve.
Somewhere along the way we lost track of what medicine is about. I am a seasoned surgeon and find that still I am learning every day how I can do things better. Honest feedback will do that when we genuinely ask for it. The problem is that feedback doesn’t fall into easy categories that you can click. We got to spend time, talk to patients, families and the staff that helps take care of the patient. But, I guess “health care” doesn’t care about that. It is all about numbers: How can you increase some ranking? How can you get top dollars for following “standard of care guidelines” of questionable validity? How many peanuts do you get for clicking the boxes while the patient is wondering if you are listening to what he trying to say? Will we ever move forward beyond the current electronic public health and into an authentic more personal Digital Medicine, do what is really right and get paid for results and not for performance? Sounds idealistic but at least I am trying, one patient at a time: http://convergentcareglobal.com/robertonovoamd/#