Creating a great experience for your patients and families is an important way to keep families happy and wanting to come back for the next visit. There’s several actions you can and should take to make the pediatric experience great.
Action #1: A Friendly Greeting for Everyone!
The first thing on my checklist is this: you need to greet everyone! Whether you’re front desk staff or a therapist, it’s the same. You need to greet and be friendly to every person who enters the clinic, whether it’s your patient or it’s someone else’s patient. You’ve always got to be going, “Look at you with those cool cowboy boots. High five, cowboy!”
If you’re a therapist, you need to be friendly in the treatment areas, in the halls, in the waiting room. You see somebody riding a bike and they’re not your patient. Say to them, “Good job. What’s your name? Tiffany. Tiffany, you’re doing amazing, high five!” This way, you are seen as this friendly therapist who loves her job.
When it comes time to reschedule, your families will go, “You know the friendly therapist that talks to everybody? Oh my gosh, she’s so bubbly. For sure. My kid would love to see her.”
Action #2: Keep Your Premises Spotless
You want to keep the waiting room clean, the bathrooms clean, the windows clean. The front desk window should not be cluttered with all your signs. A sign saying “Copay required at the time of appointment” can be next to the front desk window on the wall, but the front desk windows should be clear and open.
Your waiting area should be so welcoming. Go take a look in your waiting room. Check out the front desk, waiting room and bathrooms. Look at them as though you are a patient walking in for the first time. Make sure they give an impression of cleanliness.
You can also look at people’s reviews of your practice. That will give you their first impressions. It’s not patient care they talk about. It’s literally, “The place was dirty.” Make sure their first impression is a great one.
Why Creating a Great Patient Experience Succeeds
You’re promoting yourself as someone who loves what they do. I don’t care if you’re a front desk person and you are greeting every parent or the plumber when they come in— you make everyone feel very important.
You’ve got to drive this message home to your team: Create a great patient experience! That is how you fill schedules. That’s how you get reschedules. This is how you get patients to add another discipline to their child’s care and how you get them to add a sibling. It’s just because the patient experience is so amazing!
You smile all the time, all the time. When you leave each day, your cheeks need to be hurting, like your wedding day. Always bring the smile and create a great, positive experience for every patient and family!
Learn More Ways to Create a Great Experience
This blog post is just the beginning. Check out the videos in our Lemonade Library. Get registered and look for Lemonades that give you many more tips on creating that fantastic experience that makes families love you.
About Diane Crecelius
Diane Crecelius is a physical therapist and founder of a multi-million-dollar, multi-location practice with well over 3,000 visits per week and 200 staff! In the past several years, Diane has worked tirelessly to support Peds-A-Palooza® Community & Conferences and the success of Private Practice Owners. Diane has presented at nearly every Peds-A-Palooza live and virtual conference since the first sold-out conference in 2018. Her extensive knowledge derives from her decades in practice and from being trained and consulted by Survival Strategies, Inc. She uses this training to help Private Practice Owners learn how to thrive and expand while keeping their stress low.