Patient satisfaction surveys are becoming a real part of reimbursement, driving a significant percentage of money.
So, I’ve begun thinking about ways to hack them, of ways to put your finger on the scale of patient satisfaction. How can you influence patients’ perceptions in order to increase satisfaction?
Here’s an interesting observation.
I came across a study done in connection with marketing chiropractic services. They found that if a chiropractor visited with a patient and wore street clothes, it drove middling patient satisfaction.
But put that same chiropractor in a white lab coat with a stethoscope in his front pocket or better yet around his neck — even if stethoscopes are not used in chiropractic practice — and patient satisfaction shoots up astronomically.
Several years ago, I watched a YouTube video about veterinarians that led to the same conclusion.
If a vet wears nice street clothes, he or she scores a moderate patient satisfaction rating. But put him or her into a blue lab coat and scores go up.
Finally, if you put the vet into a white lab coat, scores jump almost 20 percent higher compared to score when wearing nice street clothes.
As simple as this sounds, what are the physicians in your group wearing? How are they presenting to patients? What other signals and behaviors, “hacks” in the vernacular, can be applied to drive higher patient satisfaction?
It’s something for you to address.
