7 Tips to Improve the Patient Experience at your Oncology Practice

People seek treatment from an oncologist for a variety of reasons, such as to diagnose and treat cancer, manage the side effects of cancer treatment, and provide palliative care.

With patients having to balance many things during their treatment it’s important to not add additional stress and tasks to their plate. To support patients and their families, oncology practices should ensure that patients feel supported through ongoing communication and information about their treatment.

In this short blog, we give you 7 tips about how you can support and improve the patient experience at your oncology practice this year. 

How your practice communicates with patients should accommodate different factors like age, tech literacy, Internet bandwidth, and socioeconomic status. To support that, offering an omnichannel (Email, SMS, Secure Chat, Video Chat, Phone Call) approach lets patients engage through their preferred channel. 

A recent study by Dynata showed 66% of consumers chose their provider based on the ability to communicate in a timely and consistent manner. The same group also stated that 80% of consumers prefer digital communications with their providers like secure chat and SMS. [1]

Using digital communications not only improves the patient experience but can also lead to improved clinical efficiency for messages that can be automated.

Surveys by the NHS show that over 40% of people want to be more involved in their decisions about their healthcare. [2]

There are two ways that practices can typically foster patient involvement and collaborative care. The first is allowing patients to have input related to treatment decisions. Additionally, letting patients share information and feelings about their condition can lead to increased trust and adherence to a provider's instructions. [3]

To offer this type of environment, practices should have an open line of communication with patients and a way for them to easily share information and documents that can be used in decisions.

Most patient portals were previously designed with a clunky user experience and just as a mechanism that lets patients access test results, view appointment notes, pay for an appointment, or send a message with an expected 3-day response lag time.

With patients playing a more active role in their healthcare, they’re looking for a patient portal that supports a consumer experience. To have a modern experience patients want to do things such as track their health, easily interpret medical data, self-schedule follow-up appointments, have video calls, review helpful content, and seamlessly message their provider. 

According to Deloitte, most existing EHRs don't do enough to provide a patient portal with this type of experience. [2] Because of this, many practices are turning to CRMs for managing their patient experience. Providing a portal and experience that’s unique and branded for your practice can be used as a differentiator for attracting new and retaining existing patients.

Patients have different learning and comprehension styles. For some watching, a video is easier and more convenient whereas for others reading an article is preferable. [5]

Instead of giving every single patient a stack of papers about their treatment filled with medical jargon have multiple types of content that consider these different factors.

Educational Materials can be stored in a Content Management Management system so you can easily send them to patients. Companies like Cancer.Net generate high-quality content so you don’t have to create it yourself.

A recent study showed that 30% of patients facing long wait times leave before seeing the doctor, while 20% will change providers altogether following a long wait time experience. [6]

49% of patients have reported that they want the option to check in or complete health forms/appointment paperwork digitally before their appointment which could help reduce the average wait time of 14 minutes that patients currently experience. [7]

Not only do digital forms boost patient satisfaction, but they can also free up efficiency for your front desk employees to work on other revenue-generating or patient experience improvement opportunities.

Let’s be honest, nobody likes having to fill out the same forms every time they go back to the doctor. Having to write in redundant information can lead to frustrated patients and time wasted.

Instead of making patients start from scratch each time, save their previous responses from a digital form and allow patients to verify if their information is still up-to-date with the option to edit any old information.

This can turn 15 minutes per patient visit that’s dedicated to completing forms to a few clicks and a couple of minutes to verify their information.

For busy patients, it can be challenging to find time during the work day to call a practice to schedule an appointment while simultaneously cross-referencing their schedule to see if a time works.

It was found that for companies offering online scheduling, 35 % of appointments scheduled were done outside of the typical 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. business hours. [8]

Providing self-scheduling offers not only provides patients convenience but also helps clinics save hours of time on the phone for scheduling each week.