“My wife was already on edge. Then, the oncologist kept her waiting more than four hours for a 10-minute appointment.”
“The pediatrician botched the diagnosis for more than a year. By the time my parents second-guessed him and went to an ophthalmologist, my life was at risk from cancer.”
“My internist is good, but his office is poorly run. I often have to wait more than an hour in the exam room; you can’t get through the voicemail loop; and the woman at checkout is, well, not the picture of warmth.”
True stories. I know, because I’ve shared them—often. And that’s not unusual.
A few years ago, a colleague and I created a marketing communications plan for a physician practice group. She found a study showing that, on average, patients tell three people about good physician experiences and 11 people about bad ones. Yet more often than not, practice groups (and other healthcare—and non-healthcare—marketers, for that matter) spend their dollars trying to lure more customers into bad experiences instead of first getting their own houses in order.
So tell me about your most memorable medical experience—the good, the bad or the ugly. Which type do you share most often—and why?
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