Never be satisfied with your patient’s satisfaction!

Physicians Can...

1. Personal minute: spend an extra personal minute with each patient to learn more about them and for them to learn more about you.
2. Positive body language: spend the time to learn and use positive body language to reinforce your caring.
3. Personal thank you: spend the time to thank your new patients for choosing you as their doctor and for exhibiting confidence in your judgment and care.
4. Good patient kudos: spend the time to recognize a good patient and conveying the same to the patient.
5. Hand holding: spend more time making reassuring physical contact with your patients, especially those in the hospital.
6. Patient’s shoes: spend some time walking in your patient shoes, sit in an emergency department for an hour, eat lunch with a patient in their hospital room, or become a mystery patient.
7. Explain more: spend more time explaining what you are doing and why, review all possible side effects, and treatment options.
8. Start asking: spend more time asking the patient what they think about you, your staff, their course of treatment, where they want to be referred, and level of satisfaction. 
9. Improve bedside manners: spend more time in positive communications which lets the patient know (Feel) you care.
10. Personal cleanliness: spend the time to wash your hands or use a disinfectant prior to contacting a patient in the office and hospital.
11. Personal involvement: spend the time to reduce medical errors internally and externally to your practice; denounce the code of silence prevalent in the medical profession.

Remember who makes the worst patients

Medical Office...

1. Spend some money for a special floral arrangement dedicated to patients
2. Offer snacks, beverages, and treats
3. Validate parking tickets
4. Have the office staff give each patient a coffee mug
5. Give a signed thank you card with all the staff ‘s signature on it, including doctors
6. Remind eligible women about receive a mammogram and arrange the procedure for them
7. Give each patient/family a tour of your office area
8. Provide a "free" health screenings
9. Have your staff introduce themselves to patients and their family escorts
10. Just smile more, act like you care

Customer Service is a never ending race to exceed patients' expectations, the trick is to not drop the patient in the process of passing them on to another.

Organizations and Group Practice...

1. Start every meeting with a patient recognition statement
2. Start a patient-recognition think tank to plan for this special occasion
3. Start terminating people with poor attitudes regardless of their longevity or technical expertise
4. Start offering cultural awareness and sensitivity classes for employees
5. Start an essay contest, Why I care about my patient, place winner’s name in newspaper
6. Start a poem contest- "The Patient" etc.
7. Start reviewing patient rights with every employee and at new employee orientations
8. Start providing easy access for patients to voice a complaint by telephone, in writing, and in person
9. Start distributing patient care ribbons, badge of caring, etc.
10. Start creating an oath of caring and living and rewarding by it
11. Start distributing customer service and patient satisfaction material and books to every employee
12. Start sending outpatient thank you cards
13. Start role playing employee-patient encounter situations, using good and bad scenarios
14. Start cleaning up your coding and billing errors
15. Start being a proactive patient advocate