Healthcare is challenged with poor customer, lack of transparency, and a lot of red tape. According to the American Customer, Satisfaction Index Hospitals received a satisfaction score of 69, compared to a 75 from Airlines. Yes, consumers are less satisfied with their healthcare service, than Airlines. So why is an eCommerce software company doing to help improve customer satisfaction in healthcare? As we stated before we believe that the growth of telehealth and eCommerce is the future. This belief will lead to more patients completing their healthcare online and eCommerce will have a big part in improving customer satisfaction in 3 main ways.
Improved transparency
Improved Privacy and Compliance
Improved user experience
Let’s break these down and explain.
Improved transparency - When you visit your doctor and they tell you that you need a prescription, treatment, or device you are often left unaware of the cost of your options. For example, one drug may be covered with your insurance, but a cheaper generic may exist. As a patient, you don’t know this until it’s too late, or you simply follow the doctor's orders. We believe that eCommerce will begin to step in here. After your visit to the doctor, you will log on to an insurer's website and check out with your prescription. The options will be available to you through the patient journey. You can see your insurance applied at checkout similar to a coupon and compare various options. This is already something as a consumer you are familiar with and expect from retail. Why isn’t this the expectation with healthcare? This will improve the transparency of the transaction for the patient and increase trust with the provider.
Improved Privacy and Compliance - Simply stated other eCommerce platform providers don’t focus on health care and therefore ignore compliance. With ZiftrShop we focus on the healthcare vertical and are fully compliant out of the box with all HIPAA, SOC, and PCI guidelines. This helps keep patients' data safe, and secure, and increases their trust in the transaction.
Improved Patient Experience - What do people love about buying online? They love the convenience of purchasing. The ability to quickly shop and compare options. They also love the ability to do this all from the comfort of their own home. When is it the most valuable to shop from home? When you are ill or in need of treatment. The focus should be on taking care of yourself or the patient and not having to worry about going out to pickup whatever you need. Imagine a world where after your visit to whatever healthcare facility or telehealth appointment you logged on to a website and all the treatment options you needed are right there ready to be purchased, with the insurance coverage applied upon checkout. Wouldn’t that be a better patient experience?
ZiftrShop offers the promise of all of these options. As an API-first commerce platform it was built upon its inception as a way to provide highly scalable eCommerce experiences. Plus the ability to connect and integrate with a variety of solutions to ensure that the patient experience would be something they wouldn’t dread, but instead be grateful for in a time of need.