The question of whether patient experience and financial performance is correlated has long been asked. The answer to this question is that like any consumer based industry patient experience is a huge determinant on the financial performance of healthcare organizations. For example, look at your own life what do you do when you feel sick? Most people go to a doctor! This is where customer service, quality of care, value, and etc. all come in to play as patients are the sole evaluators of their care. In the world we live in social media, yelp, google reviews, and etc. all play a role in how we perceive the quality of a business or medical practice. If patient X publicizes that Houston Methodists’ hospital staff were rude and unorganized this generates a negative image of the hospital system that could persuade patients to take their medical needs elsewhere. The market for healthcare is fierce and especially here in Houston we have access to world class doctors and hospitals making each and every opinion valuable. In a CMS data report analyzing nearly 1400 inpatient acute care hospitals, researchers found that patient experience did indeed have an impact on the financial performance on the hospitals. In these hospitals there was a positive relationship with cash flow margins and operating profit margins across for-profit, non-profit, and governmental hospitals. As I mentioned in another one of my blog posts, payment plans like bundled payments are the best way at keeping patient experiences positive while still sustaining strong financial success. When physicians are compensated based on how they treat patients case by case and condition by condition rather than as a generalized population patient outcomes are better. This patient-centered model is key and promotes the main thesis of medicine: providing empathetic care in a cost-effective manner.
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