“Customer service” is the new buzzword in health care. (Yes, I know it’s two words. Stay with me here.) Health care has become a service industry, like a restaurant or a company that comes to your home to replace a broken windshield. The shrimp is too salty, or the tech left footprints on your floor mat? You complain, and you send the shrimp back, and the tech apologizes and says “yes sir” and vacuums out your car. The customer, as we know, is always right.
Except in health care. Administrators and patients don’t want to hear this, but in health care, the “customer” is not always right. And pretending that the customer is always right is costing us a whole lot of money and a whole lot of preventable sickness. We’re customer servicing ourselves into crappy health care, and docs and nurses seem to lack the power to prevent this from getting worse.
I’m part-owner of a few after-hours pediatric health clinics. Our sites are open when traditional pediatric practices are closed. Our patients — not customers — see genuine, board certified pediatricians for things like fever or sore throat or cough or ear pain. Common pediatric stuff. Rarely, we get complaints about or service or ugly remarks on Yelp, etc. Almost all of the negative reviews can be summarized like this: “I paid my money, and I didn’t get an antibiotic. I expect my antibiotic. I am the customer, and the customer is always right.” We don’t get comments about whether our doctors did a good and careful assessment, or whether they made a careful decision about recommendations. Nope, the customer, is always right, and the customer wants an antibiotic. And if one isn’t given the customer is darn tootin’ going to complain about it.
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