First impressions are important. That goes for the first time you meet a person, and the first time you interact with an organization. One bad experience can cause a lot of trouble in the future. This is particularly true when it comes to healthcare. Patients usually seek out care at a time of great stress and worry, and so a reassuring, supportive first impression can make all the difference to the future of a relationship. Often, the first interaction a patient will have with their healthcare provider is over the phone with a member of the RelateCare team. In fact, you could describe RelateCare as the virtual front door of many leading healthcare organizations.
Part of RelateCare’s mission is to ensure that patients always have a good first impression with their healthcare provider. This can mean that our scheduling representatives are attentive, caring and supportive. But it can also mean that the patient found it easy to contact the right department, that they weren’t waiting long before someone answered, and that they weren’t put on hold, or transferred from one department to another, repeating the same information.
All of these issues fall under Patient Access Services: ensuring patients can get the care they need, when they need it. This can mean many things to many different stakeholders, but for RelateCare, it means ensuring that patients and providers can communicate with ease and that appointment scheduling systems operate efficiently given the resources available.
Without the proper patient access systems and processes, all of the greatest physicians and medical technologies in the world would be no good. Patient Access is so important that it has its own week!
The National Association of Healthcare Access Management (NAHAM) annually celebrate those who are working to help patients get the care they need it: scheduling representatives, student nurses, call center consultants, Access managers, Post Discharge Nurses, and many more.
Patient Access Week takes place April 2 – 8, 2017. This year’s theme is, “Celebrating Patient Access – The Face of the Patient Experience”. As part of the celebrations, RelateCare has decided to host the “Patient Access Olympics” including a week of a whole host of activities and games.
