Julie finally has insurance through her employer. She is excited to use her brand new vision benefits for the first time. She found you on her insurance company’s website, so she called to schedule her appointment at your practice several weeks ago, and the phone call was surprisingly quick and painless. No one asked her if she had insurance, no one even verified her date of birth. But Julie just assumed this was normal, having mostly been to walk-in clinics before, so she scheduled an appointment and ended the call. Now it’s time for her to meet you and have her first exam with you.
She shows up, right on time. The front desk meets her with exasperation. The receptionist tells her that she did not have a contact number for her, and she needs to present her insurance cards and photo ID so she can begin looking into her policy, but in the meantime Julie needs to get started filling out several forms. She shuffles through her things for her Aetna card and her driver’s license. She makes her way to the waiting area to start in on the stack of new patient forms. About 20 minutes later, she turns in her forms up front while the receptionist is finishing filling in Julie’s demographics and verifying her insurance. Julie jokingly says the forms should be online for patients to fill out in advance, to which the receptionist snaps that they are online, and she was sure that Julie was informed of that. Julie makes her way back to the waiting area, and sees several patients check in and sit down without any paperwork or scrambling at the front desk. She starts to feel like an inconvenience. She feels unwelcome. 15 more minutes pass, and finally the receptionist calls Julie to the desk to inform her that she is allowed one routine vision exam every 2 years with Aetna, but a refraction is not covered. Julie is shocked at this information. She tells the receptionist that she just read in her benefit packet that she is eligible for one routine vision exam and even some material benefits with only a $10 copay. The receptionist groans about how she likely has an additional vision plan, and Julie only presented her medical card. Julie’s heart sinks. She did not receive any other insurance cards, she had no idea vision and medical insurance were not the same. You catch wind of the struggle up front, only once you finally catch a moment to check the schedule and realize you have a patient checked in for almost an hour who you have yet to see. You make your way up front to get to the bottom of things and apologize directly to Julie. You meet a flustered Julie, and you ask her to allow your staff to hunt down her vision benefits and to please stick around so she can be seen today. She reluctantly agrees. Finally, an hour and 45 minutes after Julie’s scheduled appointment time, your receptionist is able to locate an Eyemed policy that your facility is not in contract with. You have to regretfully inform her that if she wishes to see you she will have to pay private pay and submit the claim to insurance herself for reimbursement. Julie storms out. The next day, you read an ugly review on Yelp about how unprofessional and disorganized your practice is. You can’t even disagree. So you sincerely apologize from the business account and hope to improve next time.
Don’t just hope. Improve.
Teaching your front desk how to anticipate problems before they even arise will keep your patients happy and their appointments flowing smoothly. You can eliminate hiccups at the first check in if you just communicate with everyone in the office who answers the phone and schedules appointments that there are key demographics to obtain at the initial encounter:
Name, Date of Birth
Preferred contact phone number
Address
Insurance policies, medical and vision
Social security number of subscribing member on insurance plan
If at all possible, insurance benefits should be verified and all authorizations should be pulled at the time of the initial call. This way the patient won’t be shocked to find out their material benefits won’t be available at the time of exam, or that they have used their exam benefits already this year.
Emphasizing proper communication amongst your staff and yourself will also cut back on embarrassing reviews and unresolved conflict. Encourage your staff to come to you with problems. Be very involved in your insurance plans, keep lists of accepted and contracted policies updated and posted near each phone. Delegate an employee to manage patient flow and inform you any time a patient is running more than 30 minutes behind schedule. Assign someone to audit the schedule and bring any private pay or out of network patients to your attention. Verify that a patient is private pay at the time of confirmation calls. Remind your staff to document and notate every communication with a patient so anyone who answers their call can adequately help them. Remind your staff to communicate with technicians about who has really been in the office the longest.
Leaders, do you see how just a few changes at the front desk or in the initial call you can improve your patient's experience? Don’t wait another day to make improvements, develop a plan and start today!
Justin’s employer is now offering vision benefits. So Justin googles eye doctors who accept his insurance, finds your practice and calls in to schedule an appointment. A kind and polite receptionist answers the phone and seamlessly walks Justin through the process of verifying and authorizing his VSP benefits. She was able to authorize his benefits and provide him with information on how to fill out his paperwork online. He feels appreciated, and confident knowing he will be prepared for his appointment. He shows up to his appointment with his license and insurance cards in hand, just as the receptionist instructed. He browses your showroom frame selection until he is called back to start his appointment. The appointment makes him feel heard, and his refraction leaves him feeling excited to update his glasses in your optical shop. Later in the evening, he receives an email asking him to complete a survey about his experience. He follows the prompts to the survey and even writes a wonderful Facebook review and recommends your practice to all of his friends.
You can provide all of your patients with an excellent experience like Justin’s! Let’s keep your appointments on track, right from the very start. Let today be the start of something new!
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