Breaking up is hard to do
Objectives: -Learner will be able to track mitigate negative patient experiences and determine trends to alter patient experience protocol.
-Learner will be able to quantify complaints from occasional and legitimate to escalating and aggressive.
-Learner will be able to mitigate negative patient experiences and feel more equip to handle the few that do arise in the aesthetic clinical setting.
-Learner will have a better understanding of the aesthetic patient's psychological needs and how to use that in the professional discussion.
Introduction: This high level discussion highlights strategies offering effective patient–practitioner tools needed to meet expectations of the challenging patient. The hardest managerial quest as aesthetic providers is dealing with the psychology of managing patient's expectations. This discussion is aimed at helping make that conversation organic and non-punitive for the patient.
Materials / method: This oral discussion will include:
-Case study example of escalating patient in need of "firing" from practice
-Implementing suggested follow up protocols
-Utilizing an internal “complaint log”
-Utilizing a “treatment expectation form”
Ways to mitigate litigation.
-Provided a clinical pathway chart (decision tree style) to implement when treatments go wrong; such as when to offer refunds, or when it's time to “break up” with patients
-Taught the delicacy of responding to negative reviews.
-Given sample phrasing for "break up" with sample termination letter
Results: Implementing these proposed quality assurance measures and mitigation of negative experiences for the patient participating in aesthetic medicine will ensure higher standards of medical care for our patients continue over time.
Conclusion: Practitioners are rarely taught how to practically achieve conflict resolution in aesthetic medicine. This course aims to fill in the gaps leaving off the technique, but adding in the most important part of the process, patient perception of success. When that perception is warped, the practitioner will be given practical ways to show confidence in handling the uncomfortable encounter.
