Healthcare is increasingly driven by value. Under the influence of our digital devices, healthcare consumers are increasingly aware that they have choices in services. Whether it’s seeking help at a minute clinic or urgent care, traveling to the ER, or seeing a family practice doctor, most consumers know there is a plethora of resources at their fingertips
Consequently, the provider/patient relationship is much different today. Now healthcare consumers seek price transparency and easier, more convenient access to clinical treatments, just like any other service-related industry. Healthcare providers are well aware of the consumerization of medical services and are actively seeking new ways to restructure their clinical practices in light of these trends.
An important way to improve the customer relationship is to let software help hospitals better manage these interactions. Healthcare CRM software can help clinical providers manage their doctor/patient relationships to achieve a competitive advantage in today’s consumer-driven healthcare marketplace.
Using CRM in Healthcare to Promote Patient Loyalty
A peer-reviewed article in the Global Journal of Health Science suggests that hospitals would benefit from leveraging healthcare CRM software. The research suggests that “Customer Relationship Management is a tool for improving influencing factors on patient’s satisfaction and loyalty.”
In business, customer loyalty is paramount to success; it’s long been documented that it costs more to bring on new customers over keeping the ones you have. In healthcare, personalized outreach is particularly important to keeping your brand top of mind when a consumer or their loved one becomes ill.
Attracting and maintaining a customer base has grown increasingly important, as large hospitals have grown more competitive for consumer dollars. Federal reimbursement has declined over the years as regulatory rules have tightened. Insurance companies have moved toward higher-deductible health plans to cut costs. This means hospitals assume more risk for collecting these dollars, at a time when “workers with employer-sponsored health insurance are struggling like never before to meet their deductibles, pay their premiums, and fund the cost of their healthcare.”
In the thick of this messy storm lies today’s healthcare CRM software that can improve the customer relationship and increase loyalty. When customers get sick, you want them to know your healthcare facility is a trusted provider for their entire lifespan. When customers are happier with your service, they are more likely to pay. Loyal patients are satisfied patients, and today, that has a direct impact on your bottom line.
Healthcare CRM Software and Patient Satisfaction
Keeping the customer satisfied is more important than ever; hospital reimbursement is now tied to this metric as a key performance indicator affecting the financial payment of these facilities. Simply put, if today’s healthcare consumer isn’t satisfied, hospitals will lose money.
Nurturing these customer relationships is not only a competitive differentiator for a hospital or health system, it’s now imperative if you want to get paid. Here are five ways a CRM in healthcare can be just what the doctor ordered to improve patient satisfaction across your organization.
Five Ways Healthcare CRM Software Can Improve Your Customer Relationship
Becker’s Hospital Review says the number one software program designed to respond to patient preferences is “a health analytics and customer relationship management (CRM) platform.”
A CRM helps organizations reach consumers with the information they need in the communication channels they prefer. A CRM is much more than a database of your patients; it encompasses both technology and strategy to help hospitals be proactive and predictive to improve customer loyalty.
Healthcare CRM software provides marketing teams with the ability to segment and model campaigns to target patients for care. It can provide
Using a CRM in healthcare can help your medical facility:
- Track and understand patient interactions. Understanding the patient experience is key to improving their customer satisfaction. A CRM can help healthcare organizations learn more about what’s important to their patients by tracking every interaction they have with your team. These tools can help you identify and respond to their needs to improve your service delivery and customer relationship.
- Create a more personalized experience. Based on what you know about each patient, the CRM can improve the relationship with your brand by personalizing messages for everything from appointment reminders to post-discharge communication. Most CRMs can now integrate with your EHR platforms. Marketing and patient education materials can be improved so that your organization seems less like a cold impersonal large healthcare system and more like a dedicated team devoted to better health for the individual.
- Improves population health initiatives. Population health allows hospitals to provide proactive care by educating chronically ill patients on ways to improve their health. These efforts are particularly important for hospitals seeking to reduce their incidents of ER readmission penalties. Today, hospitals are penalized when chronically ill patients return to an ER within a certain time period after an inpatient stay. A CRM could potentially reduce these penalties by reaching patients with the information they need to stay healthier for a longer period of time.
- It helps you achieve your mission and margin. We know there can be no mission unless the financial margin is also achieved. To achieve the mission, hospitals must attract patients and nurture their relationships and the care they provide. If these goals are achieved it has an impact on the bottom line. Becker’s reports one healthcare provider using a CRM made nearly $16.9 million on their initial investment of $5 million. But a CRM can also help achieve your mission by improving the health of the communities you serve every day.
- Improve quantifiable results. A CRM helps hospitals measure the return on the software as well as each marketing initiative. It will help you discern between “if you build it, they will come,” and initiatives that proactively seek to steal patients from your competitors.
It should be noted that a CRM in healthcare improves the relationship with all of your customers, including referring and non-referring physicians. Healthcare CRM software is a way to initiate a new era of proactive and dynamic delivery models that engage everyone in the success of the enterprise and patient populations. Talk with IES about Microsoft Dynamics CRM for healthcare and what it can do for your organization. We offer a confidential, complimentary demonstration for our healthcare colleagues. Contact us to find out more.
