Tips To Improve Patient Communication In Your Practice

“The ability to communicate is the ability to connect, and that’s what building relationships are all about.” — Tony Robbins Have you ever noticed in an encounter with a friend, a relative, or a close person that you feel comfortable talking to, denied the most important conversation that was irritating you, or in the times when you were feeling distressed? Just because the person next to you was in a hurry or uninterested in understanding your feelings. How do you feel as a result? Disappointed, frustrated, or hopeless, intending to never share your personal talks with them again. Similarly, your patient at your dental practice has certain expectations of you as an individual who carries their trust in care. Plus, as a dentist, your primary responsibility is to attentively care for their emotional needs, other than physical or medical ones. Effective communication during the treatment or patient visits gets half of your work done in terms of improving patient health and ultimately connecting them to your practice for longer. However, mastering the skills of conversing with patients empathetically is an area that needs significant scrutiny, specifically when training and role modeling of communication and interpersonal skills in medical education are brief. Considering the strong research evidence that there is a link between better communication and patient outcomes, improved mortality rates, lower malpractice risk, lower readmission rates, and reduced cost per case, you must learn how to improve your patient communication skills through the selected tips described in this guide. These top strategies aren’t only essential for you to run a successful practice but also guarantee you an increase in revenue through happy patients at your practice.

Exploring The Importance Of Good Communication With Patients At Your Practice

In order to increase your practice, your patients are the bigger source to invest in through better-to-best strategies. Effective communication not only serves many benefits to your practice patients but also has a major advantage on your side, saving you valuable time and resources. Moreover, there are numerous other advantages of good communication:

• Allows patients to get educated on their health
• Lead them to embrace proactive healthcare strategies
• Patients develop a comprehensive understanding of current care strategies regarding their health
• Communication develops a sense of trust between the patient and the provider ‘
• Patients can adhere to provider recommendations properly
• Good communication reduces patient visit costs and improves patient health outcomes
• Ultimately, improved patient health outcomes and patient satisfaction bring wealth to your practice.

Patient-centered Communication: The Current Terminology In Healthcare

The authors in the healthcare discipline are more concerned about medical care delivery that is more centered on the patient and responsive to their needs and knowledge. Following the idea, patient-centered communication is a recent terminology used in healthcare, supporting and valuing patient-guiding decision-making.
Although the definitions of patient-centered communication vary from one author to another. However, to make it easier for practitioners to understand, components of patient-centered communication are proposed by Epstein and Street to offer a more operational definition:

1. Eliciting and understanding patient perspectives (concerns, ideas, needs, feelings, expectations, and functioning).
2. Understanding the patient within their unique psychological and cultural context.
3. Reaching a shared understanding of patient problems and treatments as per their values.

As emphasized in the components of patient communication, placing the patient at the center of your care delivery is the best approach. Understanding these components comprehensively will ease the way you interact with your patients and offer the benefit they need most out of your medical services. However, there are other significant strategies to study and help to improve the way you frequently encounter patients.

Tips And Best Practices To Improve Physician-Communication Or Your Patient-Talk

Physician communication is the process of exchanging information between patient and provider by using some verbal and non-verbal behaviors. Effectively communication with patients with diverse conditions is a core clinical skill that every dentist cannot master. However, learning and employing some experts’ productive tips to better talk to your patients may help considerably in achieving the purpose of improved care and practice success.

Focus on patient satisfaction

Uttering the term “patient satisfaction” may be easier than its actual possession. Significant evidence by the researchers suggests that the degree of patient satisfaction or dissatisfaction is strongly associated with communication behaviors in the process of doctor-patient interaction. Those collected behaviors are grouped into categories including:
Task-oriented behaviors (drawing outpatients with active listening responses and providing detailed information)
Affective behaviors (socioemotional exchanges including responding empathetically, showing caring, and addressing the patient’s main concerns)

Moderate your patient expectations

Your parents bring a lot of realistic expectations to your dental office that you must understand. For example, your dental patients may have imagined that after coming out of your dental office, they will feel like an advertising star, with full gleam, shiny, and perfectly smiling teeth. In addition, they must have wanted it all without the complex treatment that is something unrealistic. However, as a skilled dentist, you must bring in some expertise in verbal communication skills to moderate their expectations.

Be clear on educating your patient about the condition and treatment

Try to be clear to patients about their dental conditions, the treatment and time it requires for the recovery. Never promise beyond your skills and knowledge that your practice cannot pay. For instance, whether the treatment of esthetic dentistry involves making the teeth perfectly straight, perfectly white, or may take more complex tasks, clearly state to your patients the time and specific treatment it will take.

Identify and understand communication barriers

Medical words - Try to avoid using technical words that your patients find confusing; instead, simplify your language according to the language background of your patient.
Language differences - Language difference is also a communication barrier that you may encounter in situations when you and your patient cannot understand or understand with ease the language of each other.
Cultural difference - You and your patient may belong to different cultures and consequently believe in different practices that may cause a communication barrier to understanding and trusting each other.
Disabilities and other languages - Some patients visiting your dental office may have disabilities, including difficulty in hearing, speaking, reading, or thinking. However, some patients may approach you in another language that is far from your understanding.
Complexity in understanding health topics - It isn’t always necessary that your patients may understand the medical terms and complex health topics due to several factors. Consequently, you may find it difficult to make your patients understand the health information that you share.
Lack of time - Good communication in dental offices and other domains of healthcare takes time. However, you may lack the time to satisfy your patients with all your knowledge and skills due to the limited time offered by your employer.

Other Effective Strategies To Communicate With Your Patients

Establish your rapport - Develop a welcoming ritual such as announcing your arrival, smiling and making eye contact. Start the discussion by addressing your patient with their name, introduce yourself and offer a handshake.
Be present-minded - Despite all the to-do-list tasks running in your mind, realize your patient that you are talking with them rather than talking at them. Be attentive and present to your patient through taking some long breaths and fully face them without thinking of another task.
Choose and use positive words - Consider using words with more positive intent and that help them a sense of familiarity. Pay the words of appreciation and encourage them to go through the difficult treatment experience.
Nonverbal communication gestures - Nonverbal or non-linguistic gestures in communication examples, such as facial expressions, tearing up, hand movements, and foot tapping, may mean more than verbal words. Understanding these gestures carries more value in communication and in the message that we convey and get from the other person. Moreover, research shows that significant nonverbal communication gestures, such as eye contact and touch, connect patients with practice.
Let your patients open up - Ask open-ended questions from your patients to get better at understanding their concerns. Place the phrases before patients like “go on” and “tell me what’s happening.” This will help them and you to get the patient’s health story and later on, conclude the discussion.

Utilize Technology And Various Modes Of Communication With Patients

Create patient portals - Creating online patient portals will not only help your patients to have confidential access to their health information but also they can get necessary information and education to meet their dental needs.
Improve patient-provider connection with emailing - Using emails to connect with your patient is a faster way than responding through phone calls. Emailing will save your valuable time and help connect with your patients with several question answer sessions and help set orders to other providers.
Texting can keep patients informed immediately - It is a direct way to inform your patients on important information and communicate appointment delays, prescription reminders and patient-portal messages immediately.
Leverage social media to reach a wider audience - Promote your dental practice and services on several social media platforms to get comments and views of a larger audience community. Using social media platforms will help you expose special dental and medical events and improve your practices by knowing the opinions of your community.
Target different people through apps and websites - Different online apps can help you communicate with different groups of people. You can promote dental content and offer important information to the people who are looking for it. Moreover, you can use the views of your existing patients on how well they recovered from your treatment and service.

Introducing The Best Billing And Consultation On Patient Communication And Its Impact: Get Ready To Get Guided On the Best Patient Communication For Better Care And Revenue Results

Improving your communication with patients is essential for your practice; however, understanding and implementing all the tips and practices at a time may seem more than a challenge to you. In simple terms, the recommendations are to follow our best tips little by little and keep making a difference in your practice. MedsDental Billing Services always welcomes those who are looking for the exact guidance and consultation to enhance their practice. Furthermore, we offer effective dental billing solutions to serve you the best billing and collection experience. While you are busy mastering communication skills and serving patients, we take the responsibility to serve you the best billing and stabilize your practice financing.