At your next doctor's visit, the staff may seem less surly and you could be promptly ushered into the examination room. Don't slip into shock: More and more hospitals and clinics are trying to improve care by using faux patients—and it's working.
Sirenna Brown was asked by a Portland, Oregon, health clinic to pose as a new employee getting a drug screening. When Brown made the appointment, a receptionist told her she would need to take only 30 minutes out of her day. "And that I had to arrive with a full bladder," Brown recalls. "I did my part. But the staff made me wait more than an hour."
That is exactly what Brown wrote in her report. She also told the owners of the clinic she felt that the aide who'd given her forms to fill out had been rude.
Stores and restaurants have employed spy shoppers for decades. Now doctors' offices and healthcare companies are hiring "patients" to assess their customers' experience.
"Physicians who want patients to come back to them need to make the visit as comfortable as possible," says Jodi Manfredi, president of the San Diego–based Examine Your Practice, which provides spy patients to healthcare companies.
Concentra Healthcare, a chain of more than 300 clinics that treat some 7.2 million people a year, began hiring faux patients two years ago. "Employee reactions have been overwhelmingly positive," says Ted Bucknam, a chief operating officer at the company. "Staff don't want to seem rushed or abrupt. If you tell them that's how they're being perceived, they try to do better." Concentra also uses the spy patient program to help decide bonuses for employees and clinics.
Brown went undercover again for another preemployment screening at a clinic owned by the same company as the one where she'd been treated so badly. "It was a totally different experience," Brown says. "They were professional, respectful, and efficient. It was win-win for everyone."
Printed from Oprah.com on Saturday, May 26, 2012
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