Customer Service is much more complex in healthcare than in other industries because there are multiple customers that we serve. The primary customer are physicians that practice in our hospitals, payors that reimburse us for our services and that patients.

Often we speak of patients in non-customer service terms as well.

At Affinity we have coined a new term: Patomer. We use this when we are speaking of the patient in a customer service context. For example, we might say “allowing the patomer to pre-register online will eliminate wait times at the registration points.”

I wish I could take credit for this, but it was the brainchild of Paul Veregge, MD.