Best practices for medical front office

The front desk or the front office of all offices, or workplaces plays a crucial role in furthering the office. This is not limited to a particular industry. We have the front office in almost all industries across the globe.

It is the front office that directly deals with all the clients and customers. Whether it is for sales queries or general, expressing satisfaction or dissatisfaction, collaborations, and more, it is the front office desk that handles everything.

It is the same with the medical sector as well where the medical front office plays a pivotal role in its growth and development by representing a major part of its hospitality, business/work culture, etiquette, business mission and vision, and more.

Why is a medical front office necessary for a medical practice?

A medical front office handled by an able medical front office administration and headed by a proficient medical front office admin and medical front office assistants are no less than a huge boon for a medical office or practice.

Enhance customer service

Customer service stands pivotal in all of the industries in the world today. When looking at the customer service desk, over 60% of the patients have been found to have discarded a particular practice due to a poor customer service experience they have received.

Customer service gets a whopping 96% of the patients' complaints, whereas complaints received against the quality of care stand at 4% only. This makes it imperative for customer service to be proper for a medical practice or any medical care facility.

Boost overall credibility

Credibility or trust or belief makes a brand and the lack of it breaks one. This credibility, or at least, a significant portion of it is handled by the front medical office for the medical care units or practices.

As the front medical office is the very first desk to which the patients are introduced, it is obvious that the impression they derive out of this interaction will be powerful and last longer too.

The medical front office is thus, the face of the medical practice, on which depends customer service, the brand ideology, its work culture, and more.

Avoid negative customer experience

One another important advantage of a decent front medical office is that it helps the practices minimize the negative customer experience.

72% of patients, if they need to repeat the same set of issues to many different customer executives, it is a mark of poor customer service for them.

The medical front office aims to avoid negative customer experiences or customer dissatisfaction by providing good service upfront.

Keep things organized

However, it is also very important for the medical care units and practices to have all their data and everything well-organized and handy. This massive task is undertaken by the medical front office administration with the front medical office admin, the medical front office assistant, and others.

Usher in more patients

A good medical front office is often highly praised by patients and others. Good and polite manners of the front medical office executives and managers, important information shared the right way, and proactively helping the customers and everyone, are something that can take practice a long way. This will start with the multiplication of the number of patients pouring in for their health check-ups and diagnosis.

An average patient has been found to be sharing his/her poor customer service experience with at least 15 people. This will work out in much the same way if the patients find a practice good and develop a positive patient experience.

Uphold the brand's mission and vision above all

The front medical office is the very first point of contact and communication for the patients and thus, also stands as the desk that sees the patients for long enough to form a vivid idea of how the medical unit or the practice is.

A medical front office shoulders the responsibility of conveying the brand’s mission and vision along with its brand value, work culture, ethics, and more. Furthermore, it will also aid the patients and their parties for the benefit of the patients.

Now, most medical offices have a dedicated front office desk, but not all of them are good. However, with a decent medical front office unit, a medical practice can look up to working efficiently, clearly representing their mission, vision, and goals, and growing.

The medical front office administration that you have at your practice can also perform to its fullest efficiency, provided you have experienced and disciplined executives who follow the best practices for the medical front office.

Tried and Tested Practices to Get the Best Out of Medical Front Offices

If you are wondering about the best practices that the medical front offices can follow to perform all of the tasks efficiently and ramp up the growth of the medical practices, then your wait is over.

Given below are some of the proven practices that the medical front offices can perform under the guidance of the medical front office admin and assistant to usher in the much-anticipated era of growth:

Smile is the only constant

"There is no better medicine than smiling". Keeping a smile on the lips can be one of the best practices that medical front office executives and managers can adhere to. There is nothing as easy as smiling, but the smile must be on regardless of the challenges the medical front office people face.

Statistics claim that 42% of patients are highly dissatisfied with unhelpful and rude employees at medical care units. Here, if these employees turn out as helpful, who help the patients with smiles on their lips, then that would be surely appealing to the patients.

Solving issues amicably

The medical industry and the practices operating within it see numerous situations where both the patients and the staff lose their cool. This needs to be avoided. The initiatives need to be taken initially by the medical front office administration, which should be ready to settle things amicably.

Staying transparent

Transparency is critical to all organizations across industries. It is really important also when it comes to medical practices, which influences the overall satisfaction of over 60% of patients. More than 70% of patients believe that healthcare costs are unpredictable.

Transparency of the information, especially regarding patient wait times and costs should be there in medical practices, and this should be ensured by the front medical office.

Proactively helping patients

Another significant attribute of the medical front office is its willingness to help patients. Therefore, helping patients should be the ultimate aim of the medical front office of practices. Extending a helping hand proactively to the patients who need them would certainly delight them, thereby enhancing their experience.

Responding to patients quickly

Getting an immediate response is something that all patients look forward to, but only some manage to get it. Therefore, a medical practice must make sure that the medical front office responds to patients quickly. This responsibility should be entrusted to the medical front office admin and the medical front office assistant.

Helping them avail the online way

Medical care is now a digitally-enabled process. With the boom of the internet and the spread of digitalization, more and more patients now prefer to go online to ease their journey.

According to the latest survey, over 83% of patients have used portals to check their test results. While around 60% of them have used these portals to check their own health records. Online access for patients is, therefore, something that medical practices cannot miss out on. The medical front office can proactively help them go online to make the patients' journeys hassle-free.

Looking for complete patient engagement

Patient engagement is one of the most important things to be looked after by the medical care units. If the patients are properly engaged, they will obviously be loving it. An active engagement for the patients should start with the front medical office, which comes right at the beginning of the patients' journeys.

Proper patient engagement means quicker digital appointments for them, complete engagement in the check-in and intake processes, less wait times, adequate online follow-up, and more.

Staying positive always

Positive living and positive working have an extraordinary charm that turns everything good. As far as the medical industry is concerned, it deals with patients, who are always anxious, depressed, and worried about their health, life, and those of others. Here, if the medical care providers have employees treating them politely and positively with a smile, then that is certainly an addon, which greatly influences the overall experiences of the patients.

Keeping things polite and professional

Along with being polite, it is important that the medical front office workers are professional enough for the patients. Treating patients well and caring for them with a professional touch is a unique combination that the medical front office administration needs to concoct to steer their providers toward growth.

Reducing patient wait times

It is a no-brainer that the patient wait times need to be significantly reduced in order to help the practices grow. More than 40% of the patients regard wait times as the most annoying part of doctor visits.

Recent statistical data also reveal that 30% of the patients have walked out of their appointments because they had to wait for long periods. This wait time needs to be minimized. Here the medical front office admins, medical front office assistants, and the front medical office staffs have to do their own part to contribute towards reducing the wait times.

Streamline your medical front office and multiply patients with GrowPractice

GrowPractice is one of the most reliable providers of medical office, patient, and practice management solutions that are helping modern practices streamline their medical front offices and the whole of the medical care for the patients.

Here are some benefits that GrowPractice is offering the medical practices to better their medical front offices:

• Customizable workflow

• Patient appointment scheduling software

• Digital check-ins

• Online intake forms

• HIPAA-compliant two-way texting

• Patient satisfaction surveys and reviews