Like any other business, a medical practice must pay attention to customer service. Service is particularly critical because customers, or rather patients, are usually vulnerable because of their pain or fear. All the more reason to convey a concern, a sensitivity, a human effort. And there's big-time competition out there. It's not only referring physicians who build a medical practice within health maintenance and preferred provider organizations.
Individuals make that choice, as well.
The doctor-patient relationship often begins with a telephone call, and that first greeting is critical. Voice quality, attitude, assurance of competency and concern, and, most of all, the humanness of the experience, lets the patient know that it's not only the diplomas that matter, it's the heartbeat of the doctor as well. There are still some doctors who realize the best of all worlds, the physician who is a healer as well as a business person. The physician who not only can prioritize the steps in a surgery but also knows where technology belongs in a practice - and where it doesn't. You have to have heart to choose to be a doctor.