When it comes to the daily grind of running a physician’s practice, many different aspects can feel stressful. From managing multiple calendars and tracking reimbursements to keeping up with social media etiquette and staying up-to-date on trends in medical marketing. It can be enough to keep even the most well-intentioned physicians grounded.
However, few things will limit your abilities as much as an ineffective doctor-patient relationship. A healthy doctor-patient relationship is a cornerstone for a great physician practice. To function at optimal capacity and keep your practice thriving, it’s important to establish clear boundaries from the start and foster an environment where both parties trust one another implicitly.
In other words, a solid doctor-patient relationship goes above and beyond just providing excellent care for patients or offering them personalized attention when they visit their primary care physician or specialist.
Instead, it’s something that every member of your team should value equally — why? Because it not only stabilizes people who come through your doors but also ensures that you have the best possible chance at providing quality care moving forward. To ensure this remains the case, here are some hints on how you can build a great doctor-patient relationship
Establish Clear Boundaries From Day One
The first thing you should do when welcoming a new patient into your practice is to establish clear boundaries. While patients aren’t necessarily going to intentionally put you in a difficult situation, they are also not likely to be completely honest when they first walk through your doors.
Therefore, it’s important to start by drawing clear boundaries around the identity of the people in your practice. To do this, you’ll need to first establish who your patients are. For example, it might be helpful to break down each group by age, health status, and the type of services they are seeking. As you start to categorize your patients by these attributes, it will become easier to discern who should and shouldn’t be coming into your practice.
Once you’ve done this, you can then start to draw boundaries around the identity of the people in your practice. Instead of opening your doors to everyone who walks through them, begin to set up an initial screening process. This will let you know who you are welcoming into your practice and allow you to draw sharper lines around who is allowed to enter your clinic.
Have A Realistic Expectation Of The Relationship
The next step in creating a great doctor-patient relationship is to have a clear understanding of the relationship you are entering into. It’s easy to think that things are going to go a certain way simply because it’s what you’ve always done in your current practice.
However, any new endeavor — especially one as significant as building a doctor-patient relationship — needs to be rooted in realistic expectations. Therefore, the first thing you’ll need to do is to identify your realistic expectations of the doctor-patient relationship. For example, while you may have a strong belief that honesty is one of the most important principles in a doctor-patient relationship, it’s also important to understand that everyone experiences things differently.
This means that some patients may be more comfortable with you sharing their health statuses, while others may want you to keep those details private for whatever reason. Therefore, it’s important to make sure you are setting realistic expectations for the doctor-patient relationship.
Don’t Be Afraid To Set Limits
The next step in building a great doctor-patient relationship is to not be afraid to set limits. While you’ll want to keep things as open as possible when it comes to sharing information with patients, there are going to be certain instances where you have to draw a line. For example, while you should always be willing to answer a patient’s questions to the best of your ability, you don’t have to be open to every well-intentioned inquiry.
To avoid setting up patients with unrealistic expectations, you’ll need to know where the lines are. Doing this will help you avoid getting caught in the trap of always trying to be accommodating to everyone who walks through your doors while ensuring that you are also not neglecting those who have legitimate concerns.
Encourage Transparency
The next step on the path to a great doctor-patient relationship is to encourage transparency. It’s important to understand that transparency is not the same thing as sharing everything with every single patient that walks through your door. Instead, it’s about sharing information openly and honestly. There are many different ways you can encourage transparency in your doctor-patient relationship.
For example, you can use check-in questions to help patients feel more connected to the care they are receiving. You can also use open-ended check-in questions that don’t have any specific answers or labels attached to them.
Always Strive For Improvement
Finally, the best way to ensure that your doctor-patient relationship is a valuable one is to always strive for improvement. This can be done in several different ways, including checking in on how your doctor-patient relationships are going with every new patient you see.
You can also use these doctor-patient relationships to identify any areas of improvement that you can make moving forward. This can be done in several different ways, including checking in on how your doctor-patient relationships are going with every new patient you see.
There is no one-size-fits-all solution to building a great doctor-patient relationship. Instead, it takes time, effort, and innovation to create a strong doctor-patient relationship.
