The problems listed below are intended to focus your attention on the very practical side of health care problems relating to customer service Hospitals, insurance companies, medical clinics, etc., all over America have ongoing task groups, cross-functional teams, and other initiatives designed to do one thing: improve customer service….yet the problem remains! Furthermore, the “fix” seems more elusive in health care than in other sectors of the economy.

1. Wait times at physician’s offices. It seems there is an unwritten expectation here: you’re going to see the physician no less than one hour after your appointment time! There is (in my experience) very little customer interaction or apology around this…it’s just “the way things are in health care.”
2. Long admission processes, bouncing from one desk to another, often filling out the same information multiple times.
3. Fractured departmentalization in health insurance companies (or hospitals)…often, customers/patients inquiring about a payment or continued stay authorization find themselves directed to customer service for problem resolution, when the problem actually exists elsewhere….and there appears to be little communication between the functions.
4. Confusing bills: consumer bills that arrive before the 3rd party payer has satisfied their obligations; bills that have confusing medical terminology, etc.
5. Very long wait times in either emergency rooms, or lately, in their functional equivalent (often), ambulatory care centers (doc-in-a-box settings).

I don’t need an article, I just need the answer of each question.