As a medical practitioner, you can never get success in making each of your patients satisfied every time. You will surely encounter patients with some complaints as well and you should know how to deal with them. Here are a few simple tips.
1. Listen Actively To Your Patient
Sometimes patients are simply frustrated and they need to get their frustration out by talking to someone. So, listen to your patient calmly and actively and understand whatever they are trying to say. Maybe you’ll find something that isn’t right in you. Never rush your patient to end the conversation quickly and also do not put all the blame on them. There are several ways to explain things to them rather than just putting everything on them. Let them throw out all of their frustration once and for all.
2. Repeat Their Point Precisely
Once your patient is done complaining, repeat their main points of concern in a precise form so they know that you were listening to them and you understand what they are trying to say. Furthermore, repeating is also important because if you get wrong meanings of their words, they can clear that thing out right away.
3. Ask Questions
If you think that you haven’t got enough information about the matter, ask relevant questions from the patient and gather as much information as you can so that it gets easier to evaluate and understand what the complaint is about.
4. Explain To Your Patient
Every patient expects the action to be taken immediately after they have filed a complaint and that is what you would have to explain to your patient. Tell your patient that their complaint has been taken seriously and actions would be taken soon but before that, there are some necessary processes that the complaint have to go through. Also, tell them to stay calm and relaxed as their matter would be into the hands of senior management real soon.
5. Be Friendly
Make sure you don’t start arguing with the patient while they are complaining to you. Try to hold your emotions even if the patient is saying wrong things because if you would start quarrelling as well, your patient would infuriate even more and things could steer in a worse direction. So, stay calm and be friendly with your patient even if they get mad at you. Talk and explain things to them politely, this would help a maddening patient to cool down a bit.
6. Sympathize
Telling the patient that you actually understand their feelings and you genuinely respect and care about them would also help to make the patient less furious.
7. Apologize and Thank the Patient
Apologize to your patient about the issue and also thank them for giving you some of their precious time and also sharing the matter with you.
Patients’ complaints should be taken seriously because it indicates that something is not right in your facility or you. If they are complaining about wrong imaging data, you need to upgrade equipment, PACS DICOM viewer.
You may also need to educate staff about how to use technical IT tools like hospital management system and stellar PACS DICOM viewer to ensure better customer experience.
