Problem:
All health care facilities are faced with unhappy patients. Patients with significant issues may file a complaint or grievance against your facility or against their health plan.
Consider the case of Ms Patient. Ms Patient arrived at your facility on time and was escorted to a patient room. However, the staff forgot her! Ms Patient was found after waiting for over an hour when a medical assistant was going to put another patient in this room. The doctor that was to see Ms Patient had already left for the day so the on-call physician stepped in.
However, when he was working with Ms Patient, he accidentally burned her on the arm with a tool. Ms Patient was angry when she left. She became even angrier two days later when her bill arrived charging her for facility charges of 90 minutes. Ms Patient called you and lodged a complaint with her health plan.
What are your steps to resolving this complaint? Who would you talk to? What would you do? What would you change to prevent this from happening in the future?