Solicit Feedback from Referrers, Patients, and Employees
If you aren’t surveying your referrers, patients (past and current), and employees, you’re missing out on information critical to the success of your practice.
When you take the time to listen to these important groups, you’ll not only gain valuable insights about your practice – you’ll also enhance these relationships. Give them a chance to talk to you, to tell you what’s important to them. Opening the lines of communication builds lasting relationships and drive loyalty.
You should survey your referrers yearly. Not only will these surveys give you valuable feedback about your practice, but they’ll also show your referrers that you care about their opinions. As referral sources grow accustomed to your surveys, they will begin to give you more objective feedback, so it’s important to do these on a regular yearly basis.
Keep your surveys short so they can be completed in five minutes or less. This will ensure a higher response rate.
Patient surveys should be completed for all current patients who have been recently treated by you and your staff. This survey could be available on your website. A survey request card with your web address should be given to every patient with their discharge instructions as they leave your practice.
Lost patient surveys are a great way to uncover trouble spots in your practice that you may not even be aware of.
Anonymous employee surveys are a great way to get objective feedback from the people who run your practice. Remember, your employees are the “face” of your practice and you need continual communication with them as you work to improve the efficiencies of your practice. These surveys should be administered yearly either in paper or online format.
Have you used these types of surveys at your practice? What success have you had?
