Health Insurance and Quality

Factors such as long wait times, poor communication, and limited number of insurance
types that a healthcare facility accepts have a negative impact on patient experience and
satisfaction. Low patient satisfaction has negative effects both on the urgent care facility’s
reputation and revenues but also the health outcomes of patients as some patients may stop
seeking care altogether thus worsening their health condition. There are various quality
improvement initiatives that an urgent care center can use to address these problems and improve
patient satisfaction. This paper examines three of these initiatives.

Introduce AIDET communication protocol

Introducing an AIDET communication protocol has the potential of significantly
improving patient satisfaction. AIDET protocol provides sequences that healthcare professionals
need to follow when communicating with patients (Irwin, 1). AIDET is an acronym for
acknowledge, introduce, duration, explanation, and thank you (Irwin, 1). Based on this sequence,
healthcare professionals should first smile and greet their patients by name, introduce
themselves, give the patients an estimate of how long it will take before they are attended to by a
physician, and thank them for choosing the urgent care center after they have been attended to
(Irwin, 1). An urgent care facility in rural USA that employed this approach recorded a 10%
jump in levels of patient satisfaction thus proving that the protocol indeed works (Irwin, 1). The
increase in patient satisfaction can be attributed to patients feeling valued and respected.

Increase staff levels

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Various studies have found a direct relationship between staff levels and patient satisfaction.
When staff levels are low, the few healthcare workers will be overwhelmed by patient numbers
thus reducing the quality of services that they offer (Mazurenko et al., 2). For instance, if there is
only one physician, wait times will be long compared to when they are more. Additionally, low
staff levels lead to significant stress among the few staff members as they have to deal with
heavy workloads and long working hours (Mazurenko et al., 2). High stress levels can negatively
impact the way that they communicate with patients as they are likely to be impatient and
irritable which may leave patients feeling disrespected and unvalued.

Implement electronic health records systems

Lastly, implementation of electronic health record systems (EHR) can increase both
patient satisfaction and allow the urgent care facility to accept more insurance types, such as
Medicare and Medicaid. This system is especially effective in reducing wait times as it allows
physicians to quickly access vital patient information and accurately diagnose and treat patients
(Avala et al., 3). They, therefore, get more time to handle a larger number of patients per day.
Through speeding up these processes, electronic health record systems help in significantly
reducing patient wait times thus improving patient satisfaction.

More importantly, electronic health records systems allow hospitals to accept more
insurance types, particularly Medicare and Medicaid. Healthcare facilities often refuse to accept
these insurance types because of their stringent requirements, payment delays, and relatively low
pay rates (Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, 4). Electronic health records systems can
help solve these problems. First, they make it easy for healthcare staff to enter the required data

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accurately thus reduce the possibility of delayed or non-payments. Secondly, EHR allows the
care facility to submit their claims electronically. It has been found that claims submitted
electronically take 14 days shorter to pay out than those submitted through paperwork. Lastly,
using EHR systems leads to higher patient satisfaction. The care facility is, therefore, likely to
get higher revenues because Medicare reimbursement increases with greater patient satisfaction
(Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, 4). For these reasons, therefore, the urgent care
center should continue accepting Medicare and Medicaid as sources of revenue.

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Source List

1. Amber Irwin. 2020. “Improving patient satisfaction at a rural urgent care center.” The
   Journal of Excellence in Nursing Leadership 51, no. 2, pp. 13-15.
2. Olena Mazurenko, Taleah Collum, Alva Ferdinand, and Nir Menachemi. 2017.
   “Predictors of hospital patient satisfaction as measured by HCAHPS: a systematic
   review.” Journal of Healthcare Management62, no. 4, pp. 272-283.
3. Avala Ramya, Sheik Khatheeja, Malladi Narayana Das, and Alekhya Sanaboyina. 2018.
   “Evaluation of Benefits and Barriers of Electronic Health Records [EHR] with Their
   Solutions: a Study in Multispeciality Hospitals.” Annals of Health and Health Sciences 5,
   no. 2, pp. 87-96.
4. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. 2016. “Medicare and Medicaid EHR
   incentive program basics.” CMS.gov