Once again I feel compelled to speak about the issue of complaint handling at medical practices.  In our capacity as field marketers for specialty practices, it’s our role to survey referral sources on the quality of our clients’ clinical and administrative services. As such, we are often the first line of fire when hearing complaints from referral sources about our clients’.

We see the complaint process as a positive route to addressing a referral’s perception of our client.  This “opportunity to improve” usually turns into a positive outcome where the referral source begins to send more and more simply because we listened to and responded to their issues.

There is a common rule of thumb in business that says “one complaint actually equals fifteen.” In other words, for every complaint you hear of, there are 14 others who are also dissatisfied but reluctant to voice their complaint.  This rule of thumb is especially important as it relates to your front office personnel. Your receptionists, telephone operators, and scheduling personnel are the face of your practice.  If they are the focus of referral complaints, you may have a bigger problem than you realized and you should address it immediately.

Complaint handling should be a handled as a formal process for your practice. In manufacturing, the law requires that every manufacturer have a written, formal process where virtually all complaints (even negative comments) are recorded, investigated, and acted upon in some fashion. This complaint file must be maintained and available to auditors at any time. Failure to do so may result in stiff fines or other penalties. While we don’t recommend stiff penalties for your staff, this heightened awareness of complaints by your team should have a positive impact on your practice’s continual improvement process and your referral relations in general.

Your referral relationships are critical to the success of your practice. Their perception of your practice is reality. Don’t let one unhappy referral practice turn into fifteen.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 30th, 2009 at 7:43 pm and is filed under All Posts, Referral Marketing, Tips for Practice Administrators. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.