Over the past few years, private equity (PE) has become an emerging force in the healthcare industry. PE’s involvement in healthcare has raised eyebrows as many are unsure how PE will impact healthcare’s biggest issues: healthcare access, quality outcomes, and cost.

 According to the Commonwealth Fund, private equity investors spent more than $200 billion on healthcare acquisitions in 2021 alone, and $1 trillion in the past decade. By investing in healthcare providers, pharmaceutical companies, physician practices, and digital health startups, PE firms aim to seize the potential for financial returns. However, to maximize their impact and ensure financial stability, these firms should look beyond immediate financial gains and prioritize overall experience outcomes like Net Promoter Score (NPS) and Online Star Ratings which are critical indicators of overall patient experience, patient loyalty, and new patient acquisition.

Understanding the Overall Experience: NPS and Online Star Ratings

Net Promoter Scores in Healthcare:

NPS provides valuable insights into patient loyalty and satisfaction. A high NPS correlates with increased patient retention and positive word-of-mouth marketing, essential for growth in a competitive industry. In today’s current consumer-friendly healthcare marketplace, it is essential that businesses not only ask the NPS questions but also make it an organizational priority to improve it.

 A focused effort to improve NPS will communicate to patients, employees, and other key stakeholders that you are committed to improvement and not solely financial gain.  Patients who feel valued and receive excellent care are more likely to return and recommend the provider to others. This supports new patient acquisition and retention initiatives which can lead to favorable financial outcomes.

Google Star Ratings in Healthcare:

In today’s digital age, Google star ratings have become an influential factor in shaping the reputation and success of healthcare organizations. According to healthcare digital marketing reports, 82.8% of patients use search engines to find a healthcare provider.

 Like NPS, Google ratings and reviews provide a valuable source of information regarding strengths and opportunities that can be leveraged for improvement. Google reviews often form the first impression potential customers have of a healthcare organization. With most patients relying on online searches to choose their healthcare provider, a high star rating can attract more patients and build trust from the outset. Ultimately, a high Google rating differentiates a business from its competitors, making it more likely that patients will choose them over others, further securing profitability and sustainability.

Driving Operational Efficiency for Resource Allocation

Measuring these metrics is just the tip of the iceberg. To ensure the success of their healthcare portfolios, PE firms must gain deeper insights into business operations to understand the root causes of negative experiences and identify inefficiencies within their businesses. This understanding allows for targeted resource allocation and streamlining of processes, ultimately reducing operating costs and improving financial stability. This is because sustainable financial returns come from long-term patient relationships and operational excellence.

How Tools Like Feedtrail Can Help

 Tools like Feedtrail’s XM Platform offer a comprehensive solution for collecting real-time patient feedback, gaining actionable insights, and driving growth. Feedtrail enables healthcare organizations to collect real-time patient feedback through customizable surveys, ensuring a continuous pulse on patient sentiment. This immediate insight helps identify and address issues quickly, improving NPS.

 Reporting tools, such as correlation analysis, also help direct organizations to understand which focus areas will have the biggest impact on improving NPS. Feedtrail’s AI-enabled advanced data analytics module, XM Insights, delivers actionable insights to aid in quickly identifying opportunities within specific patient populations and demographics such as gender, age, race, insurance, etc. Actionable insights to laser focus resources are essential to improve operations, while saving money.

 Moreover, the platform’s reputation management module enables organizations to proactively enhance their online presence and star ratings for online third-party review sites like Google, Healthgrades, and Yelp by sending promoters to leave reviews.

 By leveraging such tools, PE firms can ensure their healthcare investments deliver superior patient outcomes and sustainable financial returns through strategic resource allocation and targeted improvement efforts.

Wrapping Up

For private equity firms investing in healthcare who want to gauge and strengthen the success of their portfolios, prioritizing metrics like NPS and online star ratings doesn’t only improve patient outcomes, it is a strategic move for long-term financial success. By understanding the opportunities gleaned from actionable insights and focusing on improvement, PE firms can help healthcare organizations streamline operations, build patient loyalty, improve outcomes, securing a successful return on investment.

Want to see how Feedtrail can help? Watch our short product tour

• Patient experience (PX) feedback doesn’t have to be a conversation-ender with physicians. With Feedtrail, it’s an effective tool for boosting staff morale and engagement, building a culture of recognition, and sharing best practices across your organization.
• A former coach and a tech whiz share their experiences using Feedtrail to beat employee burnout from the C-Suites of two physician practices. They each share tips for getting organizational buy-in around PX initiatives by generating a positive feedback loop.
• Patient experience goes beyond doctors and nurses — every staff member plays a part in delivering excellence. Sharing results in real time and adding a dose of healthy competition enables everyone to appreciate and feel ownership of their roles.

When physicians hear the words “patient experience feedback,” they often stop listening. They might assume that what comes next will be an onslaught of complaints, critiques of their work, or, at the very least, something else to clutter up their already busy workloads.

However, according to Feedtrail’s Chief Strategy Officer Paul Jaglowski, over 80% of patient comments collected through the platform are positive. “If you’re not sharing that praise, you’re missing significant opportunities to remotivate the individuals who are providing care,” he says.

In the context of high employee turnover and healthcare worker burnout, real-time and aggregated patient feedback is a highly effective tool for physician practices to boost morale, share insights on what’s working, and increase staff engagement.

Paul sat down with Dennis Lamb, Chief Experience Officer at Texas Tech Physicians, and Jack Bretcher, the Chief Operating Officer at PartnerMD. Dennis and Jack spoke about their experiences using Feedtrail to bring visibility to patient experience (PX) data and build a culture of recognition that leads to happier and more motivated employees.

Texas Tech Physicians: Sharing positive feedback improve provider engagement

Dennis has worked to improve and reinforce the patient experience at Texas Tech Physicians for over two decades. But many of the valuable lessons that inform his work come from his previous career as a coach.

What worked yesterday may not work today

When Dennis saw engagement and morale slipping during and after the pandemic, he knew physician burnout was a real threat and that a “business as usual” approach wasn’t going to cut it. As a former coach, he understands the value of stepping outside the box rather than getting stuck in what you’ve always done.

“You have to be willing to change. If you don’t change and just do the same thing over and over and over, your result is not going to be the same — it’s going to start going down.”

— Dennis Lamb, Chief Experience Officer at Texas Tech Physicians

Dennis realized that if he expected healthcare professionals in his organization to change, he would need to change, too. “I had to find a way to get into their world instead of dragging them into mine,” he says. That’s where Feedtrail came in.

Switching to Feedtrail’s platform for PX surveys allowed Dennis to shift his focus from quantitative to qualitative data. As a result, physicians can now look at first-person insights and understand exactly what patients see, feel, want, and need.

The system sends an alert any time surveys come in — most of which contain kind words — so staff members receive positive feedback multiple times a day. “I’ve never seen anything like [this] as far as engagement goes,” he says. “I now see smiles on people’s faces and a willingness to have a conversation with me.”

Make fun part of improving patient experiences

In coaching, Dennis learned there’s nothing like some healthy competition to keep folks involved and motivated. By adding a dose of fun to his patient experience initiatives, he’s turned them from another item on the to-do list into a dynamic activity that everyone loves to be a part of.

For example, when March Madness rolled around, Dennis took the opportunity to create a similar showdown between various departments at Texas Tech — calling it “PX Madness.” The tournament was a friendly competition to see which teams would get the best weekly feedback scores. Just like the basketball version, there were brackets, rounds, and an ultimate champion — not to mention a company-wide obsession with the results.

Dennis’s initiative didn’t just spark a competitive spirit. It effectively drove home how every single department plays a role in contributing to a positive patient experience — from physicians and nurses to facility and administrative staff. And this team-driven atmosphere is a key ingredient in preventing healthcare worker burnout.

“It’s surprising how competitive everybody is,” Dennis says. The exercise sparked conversations about what was working and what people wanted to see changed — which made everyone want to be better as a result.

Recommended viewing: Improve Clinician Morale: Putting Patient Feedback to Work

PartnerMD: Create a positive feedback loop to prevent physician burnout

As a primary care concierge-model practice, PartnerMD puts patient experience front and center in everything it does. For several years, the practice has leveraged Feedtrail to share positive patient feedback with its staff in real-time and on a monthly basis. Here’s how this organization has harnessed this information to build the ultimate retention engine.

Real-time service recovery and physician praise

PartnerMD uses real-time feedback from patient surveys for service recovery when something goes wrong inside the practice. “We set our threshold so that, if anything is less than perfect, we notify our operational staff,” Jack explains. The team then makes every effort to identify where the problem originated and talk to the clinical staff to understand what went right and what didn’t.

However, most of the patient feedback PartnerMD receives is excellent. Those reviews also get pushed out to leadership and the rest of the team, fostering a culture of recognition and praise.

Jack shared how he has witnessed the infectious nature of praise firsthand, and how excited team members are to not just receive patient kudos, but to see other team members recognized by patients for their hard work.  “Sometimes our office managers get so excited, they forward positive comments to the team even before we as leaders realize the comments have come in.  It’s a great example of how patient appreciation is really becoming part of our daily conversation.” 

Sharing monthly newsletters and PX results

Every month, a member of Jack’s team bundles patient feedback results for the entire organization and shares them in a company-wide newsletter. Staff members at each location get to see the great things happening at other offices, and share their own insights and best practices.

“It creates a great kind of cross-polarization of ideas and experiences…it raises the bar and provides a way to generate a consistent experience across a bunch of locations”

 

— Jack Betcher, Chief Operating Officer at PartnerMD

By breaking down barriers to receiving feedback, Jack has created a culture where his staff doesn’t perceive feedback as punitive, but rather as a way to learn and improve. “What happens is you start to get more feedback, and you start to get more great feedback, and it takes on a life of its own,” he says.

Feedtrail’s patient experience technology supports retention in healthcare

Having a thorough understanding of patient experience in real time allows physician practices to serve their communities better. But this feedback also helps all staff members to feel more ownership of their work — which translates into happier healthcare employees.

Dennis knows from his coaching days that any team can benefit from constructive criticism in the context of positive reinforcement. Feedtrail has made that possible for his organization.

Jack agrees. “Make a big deal of the feedback you get,” he says. “It makes the difference because it builds into who you are as a company and who you are as a culture.”

Physicians Practice Article:

What over 2 million patients say about their healthcare experiences 

In a recent Physicians Practice article Deb Woods, Feedtrail Chief Operating Officer, walks through findings from our recent report “Top Patient Experience Challenges” that analyzed over 2 million patient surveys. See what the most pressing obstacles were to delivering an excellent patient experience with recommendations to improve moving forward: 

“Patients are the heartbeat of our healthcare system. Without course-correcting to improve their experiences, other aspects of providing high-quality care — even those that have shown improvements recently — will diminish as well.

Effectively addressing this troubling trend starts with understanding why patients are reporting negative experiences in the first place. By examining the more than 2 million surveys conducted in 2023 through our platform, we were able to derive deep insights into the most pressing obstacles to delivering an excellent patient experience. This assessment identified four core areas that generated underwhelming scores….” 

Read the full article on Physicians Practice: here.  

As frontline providers of primary and specialty care, physician practices are often the first point of contact for individuals seeking medical attention. They’re essential to the health of the patients they treat, but the inverse is true as well – at least in terms of financial and organizational health. Without a loyal patient base, most of these clinical centers will be plagued by growing existential resource issues.  

If you think this keeps many practice leaders up at night, you couldn’t be more right. In fact, one report by the American Hospital Association found that an overwhelming 94% of physicians think running a practice has become more financially and administratively difficult.  

The good news is that, with the right best practices and technologies, particularly for your overworked patient experience manager and staff, physician practices can supercharge their patient retention efforts and excel at healthcare reputation management to help mitigate costs.  

What Are Some Costs Physician Practices Face?

The first step in grasping why patient retention is so critical for running a financially sustainable physician practice is to understand some of the associated costs that can weigh down organizations’ budgets. These expenditures include: 

1. Regulatory Compliance Expenditures 

Running a physician’s practice involves adhering to a myriad of healthcare regulations, including those related to patient privacy (HIPAA), billing and coding (CPT, ICD-10), and quality reporting. The Medical Group Management Association found 90% of practices reported increased regulatory burdens over the past year. Staying compliant with regulations requires ongoing training, investment in technology, and sometimes hiring specialized staff. Non-compliance can result in hefty penalties and legal consequences, making it crucial for physician practices to allocate resources to stay up to date with evolving healthcare standards. 

2. Technology Expenses  

After a slow start, healthcare has entered the digital age. Modernizing physician practices isn’t cheap, however, and often entails substantial technology costs. Implementing and maintaining EHR systems, practice management software, and other innovative tools is necessary for efficient operations, satisfying increasingly convenience-centric patients, and, in some cases, regulatory compliance. These systems require upfront investments and ongoing expenses for maintenance, updates, and staff training. 

3. Operating and Administrative Burden 

Administrative costs represent a sizeable portion of overall operational expenses for physician practices. This spending includes the salaries and benefits of administrative staff responsible for tasks like appointment scheduling, medical billing and coding, insurance claims processing, and general office management. One prime example is handling prior authorizations. According to the American Medical Association, physicians and their staff report spending two business days each week simply completing prior authorization forms.

4. Reimbursement Challenges and Uncompensated Care  

Physician practices often face challenges in obtaining timely and adequate payment for provided services. Dealing with insurance companies, navigating complex billing processes, and handling denied claims can be time-consuming and resource intensive. Moreover, some organizations that partially rely on Medicare reimbursements can experience delays in essential patient experience data when working with outdated survey vendors. And those gaps in collecting these important insights could prevent physician practices from making necessary changes to improve their adherence to quality measures. 

Ultimately, these costs are largely inevitable to running a successful physician practice. And one of the only ways to effectively compensate for these expenditures is by retaining and expanding your patient base. 

Patient Churn and How Healthcare Reputation Management Can Help 

Patients might choose to leave physician practices for various reasons, and understanding these factors is essential for healthcare providers to improve satisfaction and patient retention.  

One primary reason is a lack of effective communication. Patients appreciate clarity and transparency from their healthcare providers. If physicians fail to engage effectively — whether while discussing a diagnosis, treatment plans, or general information — patients may feel uninformed or dissatisfied, prompting them to seek care elsewhere. 

Underpinning gaps in communication is the overall quality of the patient experience. Long wait times, disorganized scheduling, and a lack of personalized attention can contribute to a negative patient experience — and, thus, a lack of satisfaction. Healthcare organizations that prioritize patient satisfaction by embracing efficient appointment scheduling, convenient platforms, and methods for minimizing wait times with digital-first strategies are more likely to report better patient experience. And, according to Accenture, better patient experience is associated with 50% higher revenues.  

To truly curb the churn, physician practices need to deploy effective healthcare reputation management strategies. That means prioritizing effective communication, improving the patient experience from multiple angles, and identifying gaps in care that can be effectively addressed.  

It also entails careful tracking of your practice’s progress to ensure your organization meets and, ideally, exceeds net promoter score benchmarks. Net promoter score (NPS) is a cross-industry standard that calculates your organization’s promoters, detractors, and the resulting delta to determine how favorable your service is perceived. When it comes to net promoter score benchmarks, a 50 out of a range of –100 to 100 is considered excellent in healthcare.  

But how do physician practice leaders understand how to start taking these steps? The only way is by regularly seeking patient feedback and using it to make significant changes that can contribute to a more patient-centered approach, fostering patient loyalty and satisfaction. 

Using Real-Time PX Data to Boost Patient Experience 

Improving patient experience is crucial for patient retention. Your program will only be as good as the patient experience manager you have in place and the data they collect. And that data is only as useful as the methods by which it’s organized and leveraged.  

To gather this information, practices have traditionally looked to paper surveys. But they’re inconvenient for patients increasingly accustomed to a digital-first world. And causing more inconvenience for your patients inherently goes against trying to improve their experiences. 

Another issue is time. Survey vendors that follow the status quo typically take anywhere from a couple of weeks to several months to deliver accessible insights from the data they collect for you. By the time your patients convey their feedback, they might already be out of your reach and looking for other practices in their area that will quickly respond to their needs. 

That’s why more and more physician practices are ditching outdated paper surveys in favor of digital real-time listening tools. Feedtrail’s advanced PX application streamlines data collection with the option to proactively text or email relevant surveys to patients, even before, during, and after care. On the clinical end, your staff are equipped with the most accurate, real-time information they can get to course-correct whenever issues emerge, right when they happen.  

Ready to see what Feedtrail’s technology can do for your physician practice? Speak with one of our experts.

About Ryan Phillips, Customer Success: Ryan Phillips is a member of the Feedtrail Customer Success team and based in Long Beach, California. Ryan’s background in management consulting allowed him to bring expertise in software deployment and professional services to Feedtrail as the company’s first employee. Since then, Ryan has played a pivotal role in implementing, supporting, and strategizing with customers both large and small. Ryan has also had in hand in facilitating the development of the Feedtrail XM Platform applications such as employee experience, flexible messaging, and rounding.