5 Patient Relationship Development Techniques to Increase Retention

To be successful, every medical practice needs to put a major emphasis on developing strong patient connections. This means that you need to build structures within your practice that attract patients, generate income, and develop a successful medical practice based on good relationships.

Knowing this, your interactions with patients have become more and more important! Maintaining current patients is as essential to your revenue as bringing in new patients.

How Can You Establish Trusting Bonds With Patients? 

Always remember that even if you never bring up issues like service levels or perceived care, engaging in real sincere dialogue with patients can increase their devotion to your medical practice and your personal brand!

This is due to the fact that every time you speak to a patient, you are in communication with them. And the effectiveness of this communication can make or break the patient experience. This brings us to our first relationship-building tip for doctors and medical professionals:

1. Engage in frequent and effective communication 

You cannot build a relationship and then neglect it. You must take the time and effort to nurture patients. Making ensuring you or your employees connect with patients on channels that matter to them frequently is one method to strengthen the relationship.

Keeping the lines of communication open will make a huge difference, regardless of how your patients like to communicate—via phone calls, texts, social media posts, or emails. Your patients will be more engaged with your brand as a result, and you’ll be able to develop meaningful relationships with them.

The most important lesson here is to be consistent.

2. Remain in the minds of your patience 

Once you’ve built relationships with your patients, it’s important to strengthen them so that you not only remain in the forefront of their minds but also become known as their “go-to” medical provider.

You will need to be accessible to patients in order to gain their trust.

If your patients have to wait to have their problems fixed or questions answered, their frustration level will rise. Making yourself available and more approachable to patients is the best method to strengthen relationships with them. For instance, live chat might be used to maintain contact with your patients. With tools like live chat, you may enable your team to provide immediate assistance to patients and enhance communication.

The main lesson here is to always be available.

3. React calmly to negative patient feedback 

No matter how reliable and accessible you are, things will occasionally go south. This may or may not be your fault , but it may significantly impact the relationship.

The way you address these problems and the actions you take to get past it and repair your relationship with the patient will be what counts.

Talking less and listening more is the best method to improve a bad situation.

When people feel rejected, their bad interactions with medical facilities worsen. For example, making a patient wait for 20 minutes might not seem like a huge thing to your front office employees, but it might be the patient’s trigger.

It can therefore make all the difference to take the time to hear the patients’ perspectives. Not because you’ll see things from their point of view, but rather so that you can defuse the situation more effectively.

Therefore, something that starts off as a bad experience might turn into a chance for improvement. Your patients can point out items you may not have been aware of, especially when they are agitated.

The most important lesson here is to remain focused and cool.

4. Focus on sustaining relationships 

Focus on maintaining the relationship once you’ve got it going well. Why is it that we frequently lose friends in life simply because we are too busy to call them or invite them out for coffee?

And while I don’t advise going out for coffee with your patients, I do advise maintaining contact with them.

You can think about giving them a call to see whether their medication is working or to make sure the new process wasn’t too uncomfortable for them. You might also think about asking for reviews so that you’re always on their minds. This will help keep patients engaged with your practice.

5. Don’t let billing ruin a relationship

Most patients hold their doctors in high esteem. This is healthy for the long-term relationship and encourages word of mouth and referrals. The downfall is usually the billing department. Calling patients to collect payments is essential to the revenue generation of the practice but if handled poorly will break the relationship. Separating the medical service you provide from the collection department is key in maintaining a healthy relationship of respect and purpose. The billing and settlement discussion often gets heated and separating the function will ensure that your relationship remains intact. Consider outsourcing your billing to a medical bureau service like Synchramed.

Conclusion 

Retaining patients is reportedly much less expensive than obtaining new ones. Building relationships is, therefore, beneficial for both your image and your bottom line.

Whether the outcome is good or bad, your patients’ experiences are essential. It’s possible that the extra 10 minutes of waiting did not cause any of your patients to abandon your office. But if they believe you don’t care about them, they will undoubtedly depart.

Although every medical practice is unique, but the fundamentals of developing relationships are almost usually the same.