Healthcare faces its own challenges and troubles. Quality patient care and experience are difficult to build and maintain. Therefore, healthcare institutions and practitioners often employ a healthcare BPM or medical BPO company to outsource operations other than the core functions and activities. It enables them to concentrate more on patient care and treating them. Also, it helps them address one of the most troublesome issues in healthcare- customer care. Healthcare systems possess many administrative yet critical tasks.
Also, highly stressful environments in healthcare demand to be precise and accurate. Patients and families are confused and fearful. So, patience, empathy, and skills are required in any healthcare activities to ensure an excellent healthcare consumer experience. Otherwise, these customers will leave the healthcare organization and land up to their competitors, just like in other industries.
So, keep reading to know what customer churn in healthcare is and find the most effective ways to prevent it in your organization.
Customer Churn: What Is It?
In business, losing consumers or customers over a specific period is commonly called “customer churn. Within the healthcare sector, it describes the quantity of patients who leave a certain institution after receiving their treatment and never come back. Customer churn is especially relevant in today’s competitive healthcare industry, where patient satisfaction and experience play a significant role, and its importance is growing with time. Like other industries, an experienced medical BPO company offering healthcare call center services can bring many benefits to healthcare operations and assist in retaining patients or healthcare consumers.
Healthcare businesses need to comprehend all of the variables behind patient turnover or attrition. It helps companies anticipate consumer attrition, take proactive steps to boost patient retention rates, and better the patient experience. All these efforts with a medical or healthcare BPO service provider will help them build their reputation in the industry and increase overall profitability.
Effects of Customer Attrition on Healthcare Organizations
Health organizations may be severely impacted by customer attrition. According to estimates, bringing on a new patient might cost five times as much as keeping an existing one. Consequently, health organizations may suffer large financial losses due to high patient or consumer attrition rates.
Furthermore, a healthcare organization’s reputation may suffer due to high turnover rates. Disgruntled patients are more likely to tell others about their bad experiences in the era of social media and online reviews, which deters prospective new patients from selecting that specific healthcare provider. It can multiply the effect and damage the healthcare institutions’ reputation.
The image and reputation of a healthcare organization or practitioner are critical as the patient’s trust decides where they will turn when they need treatment and care. So, identifying the cause of negative experiences and patient attrition and addressing them with a medical BPO company can create a real difference.
The Reasons Behind Patient / Consumer Attrition in Healthcare
The main reasons for patient attrition in healthcare are:
- Patient experience and service quality
- Issues with insurance coverage and pricing
- Convenience and accessibility factors.
- Progress in technology and expectations for the digital world
- Relationships & trust between patients and healthcare professionals.
- Effective Techniques to Lower Patient Attrition in the Healthcare Sector
- Enhancing Patient Satisfaction and Engagement
Improving patient engagement and delight is the first step in lowering customer turnover in the healthcare sector. Realizing that patients are more than just traditional consumers of healthcare services is crucial. They actively manage their health, and their level of participation and happiness greatly impacts how loyal they are to a healthcare provider.
A number of crucial actions are necessary to increase satisfaction and fulfillment with the care provided by the institutions, practitioners, and the medical BPO company. Their involvement and dedication to patient and their satisfaction is important in the quality of care and experience. First and foremost, medical professionals must make sure that patients are properly educated about their condition and the range of treatments that are accessible to them. Secondly, according to healthcare experts, people must be actively involved in decision-making that affects their health.
Patients get more involved in the process and have more faith in the healthcare professional.
Finally, it is important for healthcare practitioners to assess and track patient satisfaction levels consistently. One-on-one conversations with patients, feedback forms, and patient satisfaction surveys can all be used for this, and these can be distributed and collected through healthcare call center services. Healthcare providers may improve patient satisfaction and lower customer turnover by adjusting their services and procedures in accordance with patient requirements and expectations.
Utilizing Technology to Provide Better Services
Utilizing technology has emerged as a critical tactic for lowering customer attrition in the health sector. Numerous platforms and tools made possible by technology may boost patient engagement, improve service delivery, and eventually lower customer turnover.
EHRs, or electronic health records, are one instance of how technology may be used to improve the provision of services. Electronic Health Records (EHRs) offer a full perspective of a patient’s medical history, empowering healthcare professionals to make better decisions and deliver personalized care. EHRs can also increase the effectiveness of healthcare operations by simplifying procedures, cutting down on mistakes, and eliminating paperwork. There are healthcare BPM or CXM service providers specialized in EHR, and any leading medical BPO company also offers EHR management services.
Another technological advancement that is having a big influence on the health sector is telemedicine. It improves access to healthcare services and lessens the difficulty of travel by enabling people to consult with medical professionals from the comfort of their homes. Both the satisfaction of patients and the chance of customer attrition can be substantially reduced by offering telemedicine services to remote patients and consumers.
Improving Personalization and Communication
In the health sector, decreasing customer attrition largely depends on effective communication. Patients must have a sense of worth, understanding, and hearing. They require regular information on their progress, treatment options, and state of health. They also require clear and simple-to-understand information regarding the expenses of their care.
Effective communication relies heavily on personalization. Healthcare professionals should communicate with patients according to their needs and preferences. Using the patient’s chosen method of communication, calling them by name, and speaking in terms they can comprehend are some examples of how to do this. A medical BPO company must offer personalized, omnichannel, and clear communication to healthcare consumers and patients.
Providing individualized treatment plans that include each patient’s particular health requirements and objectives is another way to be more customized. It lowers customer turnover by increasing patient satisfaction and strengthening trust and loyalty.
Providing Reasonable Costs and Flexible Payment Options
When choosing a new healthcare provider, patients often consider cost. So, healthcare providers must provide competitive pricing and flexible payment choices to lower customer turnover when consumers use their services from institutions, clinics, or healthcare call center services.
Fairness and transparency are required in pricing strategies for the health business. Moreover, patients must be informed of what they are paying for upfront by the healthcare provider or a Medical BPO company. Customer turnover may result from unanticipated expenses and hidden fees, which can cause discontent and a loss of confidence.
Reducing customer attrition can also be significantly aided by flexible payment alternatives. Healthcare providers can increase the affordability and accessibility of their services for a broader patient base by providing payment plans and discounts. Improving patient satisfaction and loyalty can lower consumer turnover.
Building Relationships and Trust with Patients
Developing relationships and fostering trust are essential to lowering client attrition in the health sector. Patients must have faith in the competence of their healthcare professionals to deliver high-quality care. It entails treating patients with respect, competence, and compassion at all times. The same applies to a medical BPO company or outsourcing partner in healthcare.
Maintaining contact with patients, even when not actively seeking care, is part of creating relationships. Regular check-ups, health advice, and reminders can be ensured with this initiative. Healthcare providers may enhance patient relationships and lower the risk of customer attrition by demonstrating genuine interest in and concern for their health.
Endnote
Lowering customer attrition is challenging in the health sector and calls for a multipronged strategy. Healthcare providers may substantially decrease customer turnover and ensure their organization’s sustainability and growth by improving patient engagement and satisfaction.
Engaging a medical BPO company to utilize advanced technology for better service delivery, enhancing communication and personalization, providing competitive pricing and flexible payment options, and strengthening patient trust and relationships can be a competitive advantage, boosting patient retention. Moreover, healthcare contact centers can help significantly improve the healthcare experience to prevent customer attrition.
