Don’t Give Patients Reasons to Post Something Negative on Social Media
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Complaints about patient access posted on social media can lead to negative repercussions throughout the organization. Patient access can help by:
- offering an apology and free bottled water to patients who might be tempted to vent frustration about delays;
- providing necessary information to whoever is contacting the person who posted;
- maintaining good service recovery to prevent people from leaving dissatisfied.
Patient complaints about wait times, customer service, and billing could be completely true, entirely false, or somewhere in between. However, once these complaints are posted on social media, lots of people will get an instant negative impression of patient access.
“It’s so easy to go on Yelp and vent about patient access. And you have an audience — a huge audience,” says Christine L. Cunningham, MBA, CPXP, administrative director of the Office of Patient Experience at Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford and Stanford Children’s Health in Palo Alto, CA.
Gripes are aired publicly with just a few clicks. “People used to either have to write a letter or make a phone call to complain about patient access. It was harder to do, so most people didn’t,” Cunningham says.
Social media complaints can alert patient access to easily fixable glitches.
A recent Facebook post alerted Seattle-based Virginia Mason that its online billing site was malfunctioning. Mike Sprouse, associate director of communications, says, “We were not aware of the glitch. We shared the information with patient relations and billing to quickly resolve the issue.”
Lauree Miller, senior director of patient access operations and revenue cycle services at Conifer Health Solutions, says, “Social media is a great opportunity to communicate with customers, even if something negative is posted. A complaint is a gift.”
Stop Negative Posts
Patient access can lower the odds of a blistering social media post by improving the patient experience in registration areas. “We are the front door of the organization, so it all starts with us,” Miller says.
A terrible registration encounter is very likely to cloud patients’ overall satisfaction throughout their hospital stay. “After working in patient access a long time, you sometimes get desensitized to the patient’s needs,” Miller says. The possibility of negative social media posts motivates departments to reflect on how patients view registration. Miller wants registrars to ask themselves, “What if I was taking care of my family? How would I want them to be treated?”
Miller says two things are needed: excellent customer service training and adequate staffing to reduce wait times. Regardless, things don’t always go perfectly. Patients sometimes have to wait for reasons that are completely out of the control of patient access. Smartphone in hand, that patient might be tempted to vent publicly. “That’s why you need a good service recovery program,” Miller notes. “Some type of recognition and some proactive communication can keep a complaint from ending up on Facebook.”
Registrars might tell patients: “We had an emergency today, and I apologize for the wait. Here’s a bottle of water while you wait.” For minor inconveniences, a voucher for a soda, coffee, or cafeteria meal can be offered. “It doesn’t have to take much,” Miller explains. However, major inconveniences call for a commensurate response. Miller offers these suggestions for common scenarios:
- If a person travelled from far away only to find their appointment is the following week, registrars might offer a $20 gas card to offset their travel costs while looking into the situation.
- If a patient prepared for a colonoscopy only to find the procedure is scheduled for a different day, and claims he or she was given incorrect information, every effort should be made to squeeze the person into the schedule.
- If things are backed up, a friendly registrar offering free bottled water in a crowded waiting area can go a long way to defuse tension.
Above all, patient access must be proactive instead of waiting for someone to pull out a phone and post publicly. Is someone simmering with frustration because his or her appointment time was more than an hour ago? Miller says, “Tell the patient, ‘We are experiencing a delay, and I really apologize. Here’s what the anticipated time is. Do you still have time to stay today?’”
Make Patients Feel Heard
Cunningham’s primary goal when responding to social media posts is to make patients feel heard, regardless of whether the complaint is factually accurate. Typical response posts state, “We are really sorry to hear you had a problem with your registration. Please call us so we can learn more about it and make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
The person who posted doesn’t always respond. If he or she does, Cunningham takes the opportunity to learn as much as possible. Often, she learns some useful information that wasn’t included in the person’s post. “An example is someone who gets a bill and does not know that they have the option of working with a financial counselor who can help them with their finances,” Cunningham says.
Terese Vekteris, director of internet marketing at Cooper University Health Care in Camden, NJ, agrees that patients’ versions of events should not be refuted publicly: “We acknowledge their disappointment in ‘their experience’ without confirming or denying that the experience took place.”
Recently, a patient tagged the hospital in a series of tweets complaining that she couldn’t get in to see her primary care physician for ongoing severe anxiety. The office told her the next available appointment was in 97 days. The hospital’s social media manager direct messaged the patient to get contact information, then forwarded the matter to patient relations, who contacted the office’s operations manager. “The operations manager then reached out to the physician, who welcomed seeing the patient sooner after reviewing her chart,” Vekteris recalls.
Andrew Ray, director of professional revenue cycle at Stanford Children’s Health, works closely with the marketing and patient experience teams that monitor social media outlets. “The best thing we have found is being willing to listen and then swiftly responding and taking corrective action, when appropriate, to remedy the issue,” Ray says.
SOURCES
- Christine L. Cunningham, MBA, CPXP, Administrative Director, Office of Patient Experience, Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford/Stanford Children’s Health, Palo Alto, CA. Phone: (650) 498-6751. Fax: (650) 721-6490. Email: [email protected].
- Lauree Miller, Senior Director, Patient Access Operations/Revenue Cycle Services, Conifer Health Solutions, Frisco, TX. Email: [email protected].
- Andrew Ray, Director, Professional Revenue Cycle, Stanford (CA) Children’s Health. Phone: (650) 723-9810. Email: [email protected].
- Mike Sprouse, Associate Director, Communications, Virginia Mason, Seattle. Phone: (206) 583-6541. Email: [email protected].
- Terese Vekteris, Director, Internet Marketing, Cooper University Health Care, Camden, NJ. Phone: (856) 382-6445. Email: [email protected].
Patients can vent to a ‘huge audience.’
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