quote:

Originally posted by DEC505:
Oh my, if you think wait times are bad at car dealerships, pray you never have to go to the E.R.

I'm on the dark side of the ER wait list. If I'm working triage, I will never give an estimate as too how long the wait will be. Standard lines of, "Patients are seen in order of acuity..." If they push the issue after that they usually earn a, "Be thankful you aren't being seen immediately, it means you aren't dying."

I hate, hate, hate working triage. People are pissed, want to be seen immediately and get more pissed the longer they wait. I get it and I understand. But my job in triage is to determine priority of who needs to be seen in which order and it's usually not first come first served.

quote:

Originally posted by BurtonRW:
Sadly, it's not just the traditional "service" industries that live and die by these bullshit satisfaction metrices.

Mrs.BurtonRW, for those who don't know, is a nurse in a busy hospital. She is made acutely aware by the administration (as are the physicians) that patient satisfaction scores mean more to the hospital than the quality or efficiency of care.

Of course, they don't put it in those exact terms, but it's the exact reason that drug seekers continue to get drugs, that crazy but otherwise healthy people aren't referred for psych consults and then shown the door, that "granny dumps" are admitted for non-treatable "failure to thrive" diagnoses and the like instead of being sent home with the number for social services, and why "I just don't feel like going home yet" patients get to stay an extra day rather than being discharged by the physicians.

It's a really, really stupid performance model.

Come to think of it, a cousin of ours was fired by GEICO a number of years ago. He was a property damage adjuster (mostly auto, I think) and he had one insured who really hated him, gave him a bad review, and because it was a light work month, his satisfaction score, which always hovered around the mid-90s, dropped to the mid-80s. He was shown the door immediately.

What utter bullshit.

-Rob

I can relate, we've had some absolutely ridiculous things come down from corporate lately on customer service scores.

The feds have tied medicare reimbursement to customer service scores. If a hospital's scores drop below a predetermined percentile, their percentage of medicare reimbursement gets reduced. Let's be honest, how many are truly happy after an ER visit? But now with customer satisfaction being tied to money, it's a priority for corporate more than providing appropriate care.

We had a director tell us last eek that we are customer service representatives first and nurses second. Really? We actually had a memo from corporate a few moths ago stating that our ER waiting room should be warm and inviting, smelling of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies which should be available. Really? We're an ER, not a Double Tree resort. I'm sure the cookies will do wonders for the blood glucose levels of our diabetic patients as well as attract every homeless meth head within a 25 mile radius of the hospital.

Our hospital is continually being hammered by corporate since our scores are less than other hospitals under the corporate umbrella. What corporate doesn't seem to understand is that the other hospitals are in affluent suburban areas of Phoenix. We're in Phoenix proper with a patient clientele that includes high numbers of homeless, meth heads, addicts, gang bangers and trailer parks. It's easy to make the trophy wife who smashed her finger closing the door of her Mercedes happy. No so much with the combative drunk who wants ativan to ease his hangover.

It's a bullshit matrix that has potential for bad outcomes. Unnecessary antibiotics get prescribed because a patient thinks they need them and a doc is worried they may get dinged on a customer satisfaction survey. Similar scenarios with pain medication. Frequent fliers get pampered rather than being shown the door delaying care for other patients.

But hey, politicians and bureaucrats can claim they're reducing healthcare costs by holding hospitals accountable...

^^ Unreal. Sorry, I want medical care #1, bedside manner can be #468 on the list. If I'm in the ER, I want quality care over a nice smile.

quote:

We had a director tell us last eek that we are customer service representatives first and nurses second. Really? We actually had a memo from corporate a few moths ago stating that our ER waiting room should be warm and inviting, smelling of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies which should be available. Really? We're an ER, not a Double Tree resort. I'm sure the cookies will do wonders for the blood glucose levels of our diabetic patients as well as attract every homeless meth head within a 25 mile radius of the hospital.

The corporate folks are generally idiots, and have no insight into what it takes to deliver care to challenging patients. I love to ask nice upper middle class people which hospital they would go to for a gunshot wound. They always choose a nice suburban hospital. They have no idea that the best trauma surgeons are in hospitals like Cook County in Chicago, or the former Charity Hospital in New Orleans. The standard joke is to admit challenging patients to Administration.

I had a inspection scheduled at a dealership once. Drop the car off at 3pm and wonder over to the store next door. An hour later they call and say they cant do the inspection (inspection and registration had to be within so many months).

Im a little pissed that it took them an hour to find it could not be done. If something so technical why was that not asked on the phone when you schedule or when you first arrive.

I bitch a little to the service manager about the wait and he says "do you expect the mechanic to have the tools in his hand when you show up". Actually I kind of do. I scheduled and appointment for 3pm

Many people, including me, will never give a 10 rating unless the service is spectacular. So if they are looking for all 10s or all 5s, I'm not their guy.

It would be a miracle for a car dealership service department to get a 10 rating from me. They are generally mediocre.

I recently received an email with a link to a "satisfaction survey" for a recent visit to the urologist. The email really aggravated me.

1. It was from a third party survey company. The "From:" email address was "noreply@<company_name>.com." So, no way to get back to the survey company to tell them of my dissatisfaction with the survey itself.
   
   
2. They casually addressed me by my first name. WTF? You don't know me. Whatever happened to the old fashioned business courtesy of "Mr." or "Ms.?" Nobody, absolutely nobody, who actually knows me, has addressed me by my first name since my mother died years ago. She was the only one who used that name and it still brings sad memories. All of my friends call me by my initials, "L.R."
   
   
3. The link for the survey ties you into a form that is designed to constrict negative comments. I would really prefer a free-form text survey that would really permit me to express my feelings about a medical practice that overbooks to the extent that my minimum wait time has been over an hour. Every. Single. Time. Once I can maybe understand. Twice is annoying. But EVERY steenkin' time? This is even worse than airline overbooking.

Why do they even bother with the sham of a survey?

I have a 1 year old truck, and I've been to the stealership at the 6 month and 1 year mark. Had an appointmentment for the first one and it should've been 30 min for an oil change and tire rotation. I brought up the horrible service with both the service tech and front office who actually defended their service which included calling me the wrong name, giving me a printout with another customer's contact info on it, and 2 hours for an oil change and tire rotation despite having an appointment.

For the 2nd one, I tried to avoid the stealership and went somewhere else for an oil change and tire rotation. MF'ers at the stealership didn't put my wheel lock key back in the glove box so the new place wasn't able to rotate the tires. I go to the stealership for a tire rotation, replacement wheel lock key, and state inspection. Told it would be under an hour and it ends up 1 hour 45 min.

I get the survey and score accurately, and write comments that the service tech tries but the place is an absolute goat rodeo. I get a call from the service tech that his bonus is based on the scores, and management views anything less than perfect as his fault. I say it's bullshit as the place was a goat rodeo during car buying, my first service, and 2nd service.

He asked me to redo the stealership survey, but to be scathing on the one Nissan will send in a few weeks. I felt sorry for him and I redid the stealership survey, but I wrote absolutely scathing comments about the general manager allowing the place to be a goat rodeo. When the Nissan one arrived, I skewered them on scores and scathing comments about how poor of a job the general manger is doing in sales and service.