Don't let a bad attitude become contagious
A miserable employee doesn't care about the job he or she does, won't bother collecting correct information, and won't provide excellent customer service to patients or departments.
"They will not care about how much upfront collections they do," says Vicki Lyons, patient access manager at Baptist Hospital East in Louisville, KY. "Their attitude and lack of initiative will rub off on the other employees."
Kevin McAndrews, system vice president of patient financial services for PeaceHealth in Bellevue, WA, says an all-too-common danger for access managers is to be in a "downward spiral, with a group of unhappy people. And all you are doing is telling them that they aren't doing anything right."
If an individual employee seems to be unhappy, Lyons says she directly addresses the issue with the employee. "I will have a talk with them to see what the problem is. Maybe it is not the right job for them," she says.
However, your risk of having a miserable staff person goes way down if you hire correctly up front. "We really work hard on hire to fit," says McAndrews. "One of the ways you avoid unhappy people is you don't hire unhappy people. We have a 90-day probationary period, and we really take advantage of that. After we make sure they 'get it' on the technical side, we then have a series of interviews where we look for whether they will be a good fit. Do they present a positive public image?"
At times, an unhappy access staff person may put forth the impression that he or she speaks for the entire group, when in fact he or she is the only one who is displeased. "Typically, at staff meetings, we'll get the one person who is unhappy saying, 'We all feel this way.' But when we get feedback from the rest of the staff, they say, 'That's not us,'" says McAndrews. "So you need to determine if it's really 'we,' or just one person who doesn't want to own the behavior themselves. Is it that 'we' don't like the schedule, or you don't like the schedule?"
Amy Webster, director of patient access at Knox Community Hospital in Mt. Vernon, OH, says, "if there is a negative person in the department, I will talk to them and ask them what is going on. I ask what I can do as their director to help them improve their morale and attitude. It is kind of like a counseling session. If I were to then receive more complaints from co-workers and/or patients, I would start disciplinary action."
When Webster is hiring, she concentrates on customer service and attitude. "I feel as though technical skills, although they are helpful, can be taught. It is hard to teach great customer service," she says.
In addition to utilizing the employee's 90-day probation period to help solve any customer service issues, the new employee also is given that opportunity to decide if this is the right fit for him or her. "I had an employee that seemed to be unhappy. Once I met with her, I found out that she didn't feel utilized to her fullest ability," says Webster. "Since then, I put her on several committees, I have her type up policies that I have revised or written, and I allow her to organize different functions for patient access. She has done a complete turnaround and seems to be a happier employee."
Bad days are not OK
If an access person who normally does a good job is clearly having a bad day, Connie Campbell, director of patient access at Mercy Medical Center in Oshkosh, WI, says that her staff members themselves won't allow it to continue. They will pull that person aside. "If somebody isn't having a good day, their co-workers don't mind telling them that," says Campbell. "It might be that somebody is worried sick about their mom having surgery and thought they could come in and work. But if they can't, sometimes they just need to go home.
"We talk about being 'on stage' and 'off stage' here," says Campbell. "Somebody could have a bad day their spouse may have just lost their job. But that has to be behind closed doors and not in front of customers or other departments at all."
If things are getting even the least bit tense in a patient care area, an access co-worker will say this code phrase: "I think your beeper is going off." This is our way of saying, "You are getting loud or saying something you shouldn't," says Campbell.
If a patient appears angry or frustrated, a second access person automatically breaks the tension. "Maybe the physician didn't send their order in, so we don't know why the patient is here. Whatever the reason, if the patient is even a little bit negative, we have a second person go up to help out immediately. If staff overhear something that is not going well, they come up from behind and say, 'Can I help?'" says Campbell.
A miserable employee doesn't care about the job he or she does, won't bother collecting correct information, and won't provide excellent customer service to patients or departments.You have reached your article limit for the month. Subscribe now to access this article plus other member-only content.
- Award-winning Medical Content
- Latest Advances & Development in Medicine
- Unbiased Content