Filipa Rafael: Why Do Patients Change Fertility Clinics?
Filipa Rafael, Founder and Scientific Director at Fertilidade em Foco (Fertility in Focus), shared a post on LinkedIn about a paper by A Syrtash et al. published in Human Reproduction:
“Only 8% changed fertility clinics because treatment had not worked.
49% changed because the relationship with the clinic had.
In a RealTalk survey of 1,060 fertility patients who switched providers before exhausting their treatment options:
- 23% felt the treatment was not tailored to them
- 18% cited poor bedside manner or not feeling heard
- 8% felt they were being treated like a number
Taken together, relationship issues accounted for 49% of the reasons for leaving.
This was not a representative national sample: respondents were recruited through patient advocates and almost 90% were from the United StaCustomer Servicetes.
But the signal is difficult to dismiss.
Fertility clinics measure fertilisation rates, blastocyst development, pregnancy rates and live births.
We should also be asking:
- Did the patient understand the plan?
- Did they know who to contact?
- Were delays and changes explained?
- Did they feel heard?
- Was bad news delivered with honesty and humanity?
A good relationship cannot make an ineffective treatment work.
But the best protocol cannot compensate for making someone feel invisible.
Communication is not an extra layer of customer service. It is part of clinical quality.
Thank you to pregnantish for putting data behind what patients have been telling us.
What patient-experience measure should every fertility clinic track?”
Title: Why I left my Fertility Clinic for Another ART provider – It’s Not What You Think: A RealTalk patient survey
Authors: A Syrtash, D Nugent, O Sert Demirel, E Akbas, F Kohlhepp, J Lamb.
You can read the Full Article in Human Reproduction.
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