Meet & Greet Process Improvement … the joys of tackling the little stuff

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Meet & Greets (M&G) are a standard concept in the DPC world. In our practice, we automate as much of the M&G process as possible –  from patient self-scheduling with a short pre-M&G questionnaire to 3 automated emails carefully timed just before our meeting and, finally, a follow-up “thank you” email.  The goal is to sort out who is a good fit for the practice before the call and to hopefully give potentials a chance to weed themselves out if anything I share with them ahead of time doesn’t resonate. 

Fantastic right?!  For the most part, yes.  I have tweaked my scheduling time for M&G here and there, changed the timing of my reminders, etc. But there is one nagging little “issue” keeps coming up.   Prospective patients still ask me, “How can they use my insurance?” 

I decided to troubleshoot this little issue this week. 

  1. I must have missed that question on the FAQ page I directed them to during scheduling. —Nope.  It’s here.
  2. Maybe I didn’t include it in the pre-M&G emails? – Nope. It’s in email #3. In fact, nearly the whole email is about insurance. 

My conclusion is that people don’t read emails or FAQs. I’d be shocked if you are still reading now.

Or, I may need to say it another way.  Take a page from the Department of Redundancy Department playbook and put it in more places!!  I’m hoping that this increases the odds of people reading it somewhere.   

Here are my current solutions: 

  • Wrote a new blog post about it on my practice webpage. 
  • I have added a link to the blog post in the first email that encouraged them to check out all of our bogs to learn more about the practice (I just have them start with that one first). 
  • Finally, I updated email #2 to explicitly include the “Insurance” FAQ because I had it on the website but not in that email ( it wasn’t frequently asked yet). 

Now, it’s time to sit back and see if this works. Or, I can take care of the clinician and business owner tasks I put off to tackle this silly little process improvement. 

Don’t you love it!?? I sure do!

About Angela Andrews, MD

Dr. Angela Andrews is a board-certified Internal Medicine and Pediatrics physician, health coach, wife, mom, and lifelong athlete. When not spending time with her family or caring for her patients, she is training for her next competition. Dr. Andrews graduated from the University of Michigan with a Bachelor of Science in Engineering in Biomedical Engineering and worked at General Electric Healthcare Wisconsin for nearly five years before returning to her dream of becoming a doctor. She received her medical degree from Michigan State University College of Human Medicine. She completed her Med-Peds residency at the Detroit Medical Center & Children's Hospital of Michigan in Detroit, MI. After 8 years in the system, Dr. Andrews opened Seeds of Health Direct Primary Care in Grand Rapids, MI in February 2014. Her personal journey with fitness, nutrition, and lifestyle medicine training was a key factor in her decision. She spent years trying to figure out how to incorporate this experience into a “standard” clinical practice, before finding a natural fit within Direct Primary Care. Dr. Andrews is passionate about helping patients address the root cause of their mental and physical conditions and guiding them to cultivate healthy habits around exercise, good nutrition, and mental well-being. Dr. Andrews lives in Byron Center, Michigan, with her husband and exercise companion, Joseph VanEss, their son, Myles, and her two bonus children, Griffen and Quinne. She engages in various fitness activities (CrossFit, running, swimming, yoga, and bodybuilding) and enjoys gardening, tackling projects around the house, and building things out of wood.