How often do you evaluate your medical record and image retrieval process for referred patients?
This tends to be one of those hospital department processes that is overlooked in terms of how it relates to the patient experience. An inefficient process could negatively impact patient satisfaction and cost your department a loss in potential revenue upwards of $1.5 million per patient.
With growing consumerism in health care, a patient’s experience with your organization has ripple effects. Studies show that each dissatisfied consumer tells, on average, 11 other people about a bad experience. That’s a significant risk when it comes to patient retention and growing market share.
I put together a list of four questions to help you determine if your intake workflows and medical record and image retrieval processes are helping or hurting your overall patient experience initiatives. Paying careful attention to these factors can support positive patient experiences in your organization.
- Are patients expected to collect their own medical records and images?
Gathering patients’ records is a cumbersome manual task. Sometimes just trying to identify where to request records from can be an arduous task. We get it. Your staff is already stretched thin. Having patients take on this responsibility might seem like a good idea. But burdening sick, scared, and overwhelmed patients and caregivers with this task can result in a negative first impression of your facility. But you have options – partnering with eHealth Technologies means less work for your team and a smooth, streamlined intake process for your new patients.
- How consistent is your intake process across your health system?
As large, complex organizations, health systems often have department-specific processes for their patient population. But in this scenario, how can the organization really measure the effectiveness of the intake process, understand best practices, and create universally positive patient experiences? Taking an enterprise approach to collecting new patients’ medical history, data, and images allows the system to better understand what processes truly work best for the patient and for the organization. It also ensures that all patients have the high-quality experience you strive for.
- How long does it take to receive a comprehensive patient medical record, including images, pathology, and all relevant information for a referred patient?
Retrieving information for a patient’s medical history is a time-consuming process. Once you send the records request – how long does it take for the records to be sent to you? Two days, four days, ten days? How many follow-up calls do you make? Our customer service support team can remove that burden from your staff. Our typical turn-around-time to retrieve medical records is as little as one to five days. If your clinicians need to review records before scheduling a patient or seeing a patient at the first appointment, relying on a set turn-around time (TAT) is important.
- Do you get everything you need to have a productive first appointment, without any repeat testing or missing records?
How complete are the outside records you retrieving? If something can’t be found or the source of the records won’t respond to your requests, are you forced to schedule the patient anyway and see them without that critical information? Then what? Does the patient have to repeat tests or come back after your department tracks down the missing records? This can severely impact your time to treatment and frustrate your clinicians and patients. Our team is a dedicated resource you can use to continue to follow-up, on a daily basis, until all the necessary records are obtained.
eHealth Technologies works with hospitals and health systems all over the country – helping to organize resources and internal workflows. Our goal is to ensure that staff and clinical teams have access to all of the patient information they need when they need it. This means that they can expedite the development of effective treatment plans for patients. What more could your team – and their patients – ask for?
