Effective & Actionable Strategies
Define
Customer service behaviors
(service protocols/scripts)
Ensure
Employees have the skills to meet established objectives
Achieve
Outstanding service performance
Clinician Resources
With payer focus on better outcomes, lower cost and higher patient satisfaction scores, it’s vital that clinicians have the knowledge and skills to ensure a more positive patient experience. SLG offers a range of physician-led resources for your clinical team.
Seminars
Topics & Themes
- Clinician-Patient Communication
- Getting Real About Burnout
- Motivating Patients
- Managing Patient Expectations
- The Power of Emotional Connection
- Efficiency and Flow
- Managing Challenging Patient Situations
- Building an Empowered Care Team
- Improving Patient Compliance
- Setting Boundaries with Patients
- Patient Access
- Inpatient Physician-Patient Communication
- Your Practice and the Cycle of Care
- Talking through Sensitive Subjects
- Virtual Visits and the Care Experience
Shadow Coaching
An effective technique for helping a doctor raise his or her patient survey scores is to “shadow” him or her for a day.
Low-scoring providers often have no clear understanding of why patients rate them poorly, and what to do to improve.
One-on-one shadow coaching by an experienced, objective third-party gives providers immediate feedback during a typical workday, in a natural setting, with their actual patients.
Our typical shadow coaching process:
- Baseline assessment to understand current productivity and patient feedback data
- Introductory meetings to introduce project, establish credentials and discuss goals
- Shadow activity for a full day observing patient encounters
- Written report with observations and recommendations
- Access to Astute Doctor Education, an online physician communication CME platform
The process outlined above has proven successful in creating marked improvement for those providers who actively engage in the process.
CME
Online Physician Communication
SullivanLuallin Group has partnered with Astute Doctor Education to bring CME-accredited web-based provider-patient communication training to your physicians.
This simple-to-access physician education platform provides engaging course content designed to help physicians and surgeons of every specialty use patient-centered, empathic interpersonal techniques to communicate more effectively and maximize time spent with each patient.
Delivered in 15-minute interactive segments, the Astute Doctor Education series addresses the most common challenges facing providers. Included are easy-to-use, practical strategies to build strong patient relationships, handle challenging patients, manage cross-cultural communication, and other themes central to the doctor-patient interaction.
Even top-scoring physicians find value in viewing the effective, patient-pleasing techniques demonstrated in the courses.
In a convenient, easy-to-use online setting, physicians learn how to:
- Build strong patient relationships
- Motivate and manage challenging patients
- Generate word-of-mouth referrals
- Reduce malpractice litigation risk
- Increase patient satisfaction survey scores
- Maximize reimbursement bonuses
Physicians can choose which segments to watch at their convenience, and then complete a brief post-course test (70% is required to pass and earn CME credit). The entire series of six courses qualifies for 6.5 CME credits, which can be earned over a 12-month period.
The online physician communication CME program is attractively priced at $194 per provider for all six courses (volume discounts are available for groups and physician networks).
Courses are accredited for up to 6.5 AMA PRA Category 1 Credits™ through joint providership of The University of Arizona College of Medicine – Tucson and Astute Doctor Education, Inc. Participants claiming CME credit from this activity may submit the credit hours to the American Osteopathic Association for Category 2 credit.
Staff and Manager Resources
Our customized programs establish a culture of patient-centered care and exceptional service, motivating and inspiring care team members to go the “extra step.” Lively and interactive workshops introduce all members of the care team to our C.L.E.A.R. model of service protocols used by highly rated healthcare organizations nationwide.
Workshop
A Better Care Experience with A.I.M.
Over the past two decades, there has been significant changes in how success in patient satisfaction is defined.
This program gives a clear understanding of this changing face of healthcare and delivers a clear and simple process to thrive in today’s challenging healthcare environment. To rein in the unsustainable growth in healthcare costs year-over-year, CMS developed the doctrine of the “Triple Aim”. (Lower costs while improving quality and the patient experience). This has resulted in such industry changing programs like Patient Centered Medical Homes (PCMH), Alternative Care Organizations (ACOs) and the Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS).
At the turn of the century, patient satisfaction was just that, “How satisfied are our patients with their care experience?” Today’s ambulatory healthcare organizations will be measuring patient engagement using either ACO CAHPS or CAHPS for MIPS which has completely redefined how success is measured.
Program Goals:
Assess
Evaluating the Patient Experience
- Introduction to CAHPS for ACO and MIPS
- Learn why assessing the care experience is vital
- Learn how success in patient engagement is redefined under MACRA
Improve
Gain effective techniques to improve patient engagement
- Learn the key drivers for patient engagement
- Introduction to service protocols (C.L.E.A.R.)
- Learn tips and techniques to address key drivers of patient engagement
Manage
Action Plans for long-term success
- LEARN how the C.L.E.A.R. service protocols help manage staff toward higher patient satisfaction and engagement
- Action Planning tool
- Walk-about Management tool
- Rounding Tool
- Telephone Staff Managing tool
Workshop
YOU Make the Difference
During the employee workshop, we communicate the importance of Service Protocols and the scripts that make them come alive.
Through a series of activities and exercises we present an easy to remember acronym, C.L.E.A.R. that guides staff through every step of the patient encounter, and is easy for managers to watch for.
Connect
Procedures for greeting and treating patients that make a positive first impression
Listen
Techniques for making patients feel valued and heard especially when handling complaints or telephone calls
Explain
Strategies for ensuring that patients go through their encounter understanding prescription instructions
Ask
Scripts to ensure that patients have had all of their questions answered and their needs met
Re-connect
Techniques for ending the encounter and departure on a positive note
Workshop Objectives:
- Understand how patient expectations and payer requirements have expanded the “service” roles of medical professionals
- Learn how to communicate more effectively both in person and on the telephone with patients, visitors, and co-workers
- Learn how to deal with difficult patients and their complaints without “losing your cool."
Workshop
Improving Service Excellence Through Successful Telephone Communication
The telephone is the portal to the practice.
Front desk and scheduling staff members are the portal of your medical practice. These professionals form the first impression of your office. How these employees respond to your patients can affect a group’s image, reputation, and bottom line.
Clinical office staff who interact with patients and other callers also influence patient satisfaction and ultimately patient survey scores. It is vital that these important members of your practice have the knowledge and skills to manage telephone calls effectively.
Workshop Objectives:
- Review Service Protocols for communicating more effectively and making callers feel important
- Learn secrets for responding to challenging or demanding callers
- Practice the 5-step model for handling caller complaints
Workshop
Managing for Extraordinary Service
As motivators, communicators and supervisors, managers are the key to maintaining the momentum of a service quality effort.
Good employees often become department managers with little training regarding their ability to set standards, relate them effectively to subordinates, and ensure that the standards are met or exceeded.
This workshop includes an instrumented self-assessment, video-assisted instruction, group exercises, customized role plays, and training in the use of service protocols to motivate and manage staff members.
Participants in this workshop will gain:
- Proven skills for team building and generating more cooperation in your department.
- Service protocols (C.L.E.A.R.) to communicate to staff and for use in holding employees accountable.
- Techniques for diagnosing employee performance and selecting high-probability managing styles.
- Recommendations for selecting job applicants who have “service” instincts.
- Strategies for correcting unsatisfactory performance in newcomers and long-term employees alike without impairing self-esteem.
- Skills for preparing and conducting performance evaluations using service protocols to hold people accountable for their service performance.
- Strategies for maintaining the momentum of a service initiative in each department.
Workshop
Empowering Your Team to Improve Access & Flow
Efficient processes uncover hidden capacity, minimize unnecessary waiting and creates a better patient care experience.
A well-run physician practice relies on a high-performing front office team with the skills to ensure patients have access to care when they need it and the ability to facilitate effective patient flow. This workshop is designed to embrace the challenges the front office encounters and offers concrete tools to improve access and flow.
Workshop Objectives:
- Understand the role the front of office staff in the overall success of the practice
- Learn ways to measure and manage critical processes to improve access and flow
- Empower front office staff to be active participants in the change management process
- Provide tools for staff and managers to evaluate processes and make lasting changes
Importance of Service Protocols
Today patients (and the Center for Medicare and Medicaid — CMS) evaluate quality on both clinical outcomes and the patient experience.
As a result, it’s essential that managers and employees as well as clinicians understand the importance of patient-responsive performance in a service-sensitive marketplace.
Often, many medical offices have two different management styles.
Technical tasks are clearly defined (clinical protocols) and closely monitored, while service issues are addressed in generalities, and left to the good judgment of each individual. As a consequence, most organizations deliver good clinical care but average customer service.