Learn to read people to give better service
A complaint made years ago by a patient in the emergency department (ED) she was overseeing serves as a continual reminder for Maxine H. Wilson, CHAM, a former longtime patient access director who conducts customer service seminars at various health care facilities and professional association meetings.
"The gentleman said he came in, sat down in the waiting area, and all he saw were people with pieces of paper — people in offices with papers, and people walking around with papers," recalls Wilson, who now works for Apria Healthcare in Oak Ridge, TN. "His complaint was that nobody seemed to care."
Never mind that what those employees were doing with the pieces of paper was important, and that it wasn’t detracting from patient care, she adds. "That was his perception, and I have never forgotten it."
The message underscored by that example, Wilson says, is that no matter how busy registration staff are, someone always needs to take a few seconds to walk into the waiting area, look at the sign-in sheet and say something like, "I’ll be with you in a moment."
Role-playing as a training tool
With that in mind, Wilson emphasizes role-playing in the customer service seminars she leads for access employees. "I’ll have one person be the registrar, and another the customer, and then switch them," she adds, encouraging staff to see what it feels like to be the waiting patient. "How many times have you been to the physician’s office, and five minutes seemed like 50? Even if you’re going in for a checkup, you still feel apprehensive."
Frontline access employees need to constantly be reminded that "these are people, and this is not just a 7-3 shift where you put in your time and go home," Wilson says. "It takes a very rare breed to really accept [the challenges of] the health care field, but there’s nothing more rewarding than to be there and help. You’re only doing the job, but to the patient it’s the most important thing in the world."
Wilson says she found during her 35-year tenure in a health care setting that, while most customers have that "want-to-be-taken-care-of feeling," others don’t desire as much personal interaction. "It helps to learn to read people, to know when they feel like being approached, and to know when to be more matter of fact."
"When a person first approaches, take a few moments to make eye contact, and when you address the individual, listen to how they answer," she suggests. "Watch the body language. If the person is glancing around, not offering to sit down even though there is a vacant chair, and says, Can you tell me how long it will be before I get to my room?’ — that is not a person who wants to chitchat."
The best response in that case, Wilson says, is to say something like, "We will get you to your room in just a few minutes, as soon as I get a little information that will help us take care of you."
On the other hand, if the person is smiling, asking about your day, and making a joke, she adds, "you know they are the more personable type" and can respond in kind.
In some of her seminars, Wilson continues, "I show how you can do a warm fuzzy’ several different ways. You always want to present a warm, friendly greeting. "The thing that makes waiting tolerable for people," she says, "is to be acknowledged, and for them to know that you know they are there."
While volunteer greeters are invaluable, the importance of an employee taking the time to scan the waiting area and briefly acknowledge those waiting cannot be overestimated, Wilson points out. "If I’m the registrar and I come to the door and glance at the waiting list, people see me, and they know I’m not just sitting behind closed doors and not aware of their presence."
Although there are much essential data that must be obtained in the registration process, Wilson suggests that registrars also focus on the individual. "Give the patient the feeling that he or she, not just the information, is important," she says.
Broadening the customer’ definition
The definition of customer service should be comprehensive enough to include colleagues as well as the patients, family members, physicians, and others with whom access professionals come in contact on a daily basis, she advises. Many of the customer service pointers Wilson shares in her seminars are equally applicable to co-workers and even to employees’ family members, she says. "I like to give them techniques they can use in their personal lives."
Some of the seminars she has been invited to conduct have been for small groups at meetings of affiliates of the National Association of Healthcare Access Management (NAHAM), notes Wilson, who is the Southeast delegate for NAHAM and president of the Tennessee Association of Healthcare Access Managers.
As part of her volunteer work as a NAHAM delegate, she adds, Wilson proctors examinations for the two certifications offered through the organization — certified healthcare access manager (CHAM) and the more recently established certified healthcare access associate (CHAA) — and she says the latter has been a big morale booster for frontline staff.
"The CHAA certification became available in 1999, and many facilities have integrated this into the career ladder, as well as making it one of the requirements for the position," Wilson says.
Examinations for both certifications will be held this month at the annual NAHAM conference and exposition in Tampa, FL. More information is available at the organization’s web site, www.naham.org or by e-mail at [email protected].
[Editor’s note: Maxine Wilson can be reached at Apria Healthcare at (865) 425-0538, at home at (865) 457-7746, or by e-mail at [email protected].]
A complaint made years ago by a patient in the emergency department she was overseeing serves as a continual reminder for a former longtime patient access director who conducts customer service seminars at various health care facilities and professional association meetings.
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