How to Improve Customer Service: Clinical Coding Optimization

The healthcare industry is unique in many ways. Customer service isn’t always measured in customer satisfaction in the traditional sense, but more in the way of how smooth and easy the experience was from start to finish. How hard was it to reach someone on the phone? How quickly were they able to get an appointment? Were accommodations made for making an urgent appointment due to a serious development or situation? How were they greeted when they arrived for the appointment and how difficult was the check-in process after they signed in to see the doctor? All of these things may seem little, but they add up to each patient’s individual experience with your practice or clinic.

Other areas indicate quality customer service as well. Believe it or not, clinical coding optimization and the effectiveness of your medical billing services department ranks high on that list. You wouldn’t think that proper otolaryngology billing and coding would matter to a patient, but considering all of the confusing invoices, third-party payer issues, and healthcare insurance changes in recent years, it can really matter a lot. If you aren’t sure what your practice’s issues are with making improvements to customer service, you can always hire a professional healthcare consultant to perform an evaluation and identify the areas that need to be changed.

The Little Things Mean a Lot
If something as “small” as saying hello to a patient by their name or by telling them genuinely that it is nice to see them again can make such a difference, imagine what accurate and expedited billing submissions can do. Nobody wants to get a bill in the mail, but they also want to get an accurate bill that has been properly submitted for payment to their insurance company or other third-party payer. Delays in submission can cause them to receive the full bill, instead of the portion that they are required to pay. This practice can be confusing, frustrating, and cause the patient to become impatient with the entire process. The last thing your office needs is to start getting phone calls from angry patients due to issues caused by your medical billing services.

So What Do You Do?
Sometimes the best course of action is to hire a professional. A healthcare consultant who has years of experience working with clinical coding optimization and medical billing services for the otolaryngology specialty. MD Pro Solutions is such as service provider, with over 45 years of experience working in the medical field with otolaryngology billing and coding. In addition to consultant services, we also provide training to help make improvements to your billing department and process. Online support and other assistance can get your medical billing services back up and running, process claims and collect payments. If your staff is too far behind in submissions or has had problems with training in the past, you can also consider outsourcing ENT billing and coding services to a professional provider.

Customer Service is Important
In addition to making improvements to otolaryngology billing and coding, you also need to make sure that everyone from the girl at the front desk to the manager of medical billing services knows how to treat a customer properly. Even long-time practices need to do everything they can to ensure proper medical billing services and friendly, effective, and efficient staff.

Some of the things you can do to boost customer service scores include:

• teaching your staff to say “please” and “thank you” when working with patients; many practices are so busy that they say they don’t have time for these niceties, but in reality, they don’t have time NOT to be polite; kindness and loyalty are important to any successful practice
• focus on front desk staff, instructing them to greet patients by name and be warm and friendly when they speak with them on the phone; in addition to being polite, kind, and warm – remembering a patient’s name can rank really high on the customer satisfaction list
• be a good example to your staff, always remembering to be polite and treat each patient with kindness; they will notice the change in your attitude and respond accordingly, injecting their own conversations with patients with more respect and warm conversation
• always introduce the patient to the next person that will be working with them, such as the induction nurse who will be taking their vitals and gathering medical information; then have the nurse introduce the doctor, and so on

Contact MD Pro Solutions for Healthcare Consultant Services
If you are interested in making improvements to your account management and customer service, give us a call at 508-946-1665. Our team can help you with clinical coding optimization, medical billing services, and otolaryngology billing and coding. Whatever your needs for your ENT practice or clinic, MD Pro Solutions can help.