Great patient service at your medical practice starts with excellent communication skills, and that goes far beyond smiling and greeting patients when they come through your door. You must also know how to anticipate potential communication barriers and create strategies to overcome them so every patient leaves your practice feeling great about the care they received.
Check out five communication barriers that medical practices may experience, along with tips on how to combat them.
1. Physical Communication Barriers
Suppose a patient is hard of hearing and approaches your front desk. If your glass reception window is closed, you’re compounding the issue by muffling your voice. The same is true if you are looking down, mumbling, or speaking quietly to them when they’re clearly trying to understand what you’re saying.
Solution: When a patient approaches the front desk, open your glass window if you have one. Make eye contact and look directly at them while speaking so your voice projects toward them. Enunciate your words carefully and move closer if necessary so they can hear you better. Move any physical obstructions out of the way between you so they feel connected to you.
2. Perceptual Barriers
Suppose someone in your practice isn’t particularly positive in the mornings, but the patients who come through the door are bubbly and energetic. If a happy patient approaches your front desk and the receptionist mumbles a curt “Name please?” and then dismisses them, the patient will perceive that bad energy is coming from the receptionist, even if that isn’t intended.
Solution: In most cases, perception is reality for those who are on the other side of it. Don’t allow patients to think your front desk team is angry at them or dismissive, even if it’s just how your receptionist deals with everyone. Train your reception team to greet patients warmly and overcome any perceptual issues up front.
3. Emotional Barriers
Patients may come in feeling a lot of different emotions, depending on their circumstances and symptoms. If a patient is in a lot of pain, they might be crying when they walk into your front door, and unable to communicate what they want to say.
Solution: Your front desk team should practice empathy toward patients who are having emotional struggles. Knowing how to talk to them and ease their emotional issues will help you make a connection with the patient and improve communication until they can see their provider.
4. Cultural Barriers
Patients who come to your practice likely come from a variety of cultures and backgrounds, and that means you’ll face specific cultural nuances that you must respect and understand. Perhaps a patient doesn’t want to be touched, or won’t make eye contact due to cultural differences. Although these habits may not be in line with how your front desk staff operates, it’s something to anticipate and prepare for.
Solution: Follow the patient’s lead in situations like this. If a patient doesn’t want to make eye contact, for instance, continue speaking with them normally rather than asking if there’s an issue, or trying to get their gaze. Respecting their culture will go far in forging a connection with the patient.
5. Language Barriers
Medical practices sometimes report that their patients speak up to 30 different languages. Of course, there’s no way for your front desk team to understand how to speak all of those different languages, but you should be prepared for them.
Solution: Be prepared by having a translation service available so you can communicate with patients. In the short term, you may want to have a translation app on your phone to answer simple questions like where the bathroom is and whether the doctor is running late.
Avoid patient service issues at your front desk to improve patient relations with key tips from expert Tracy Bird, CPC, FACMPE, CPMA, CEMC, CPC-I. During Tracy’s 60-minute online training, Head Off Patient Service Disasters at Your Front Desk Now, you’ll get actionable tips that help your front desk adopt skills that ensure every patient is happy. Register today!
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