.png)
- sagruner
Ideas for Celebrating Patient Access Week: An Interview with Joyce Bryant
Updated: Mar 22
HealthWare Systems Blog
Posted on Wednesday, March 28, 2018
Patient Access Week is here!
Many managers may be looking for ways to recognize their hard-working patient access employees.
HealthWare Systems recently spoke with Joyce Bryant, who served over 8 years managing a centralized high volume call center consisting of 50+ Patient Access Specialists for four hospitals and five outpatient facilities as a Regional Director of PreAccess.
Joyce explained that it can be difficult to come up with activities for 60+ people, especially with budget obligations. But she and her managers were able to find creative ways to celebrate their patient access employees during Patient Access Week, and each was a big hit!
Check out her ideas for celebrating Patient Access Week!
Work Station Bingo
“You can’t shut down your call center to play games and do get-togethers. So, I came up with the idea of playing Bingo at their desk. I had a manager go buy a Bingo game (we reused it every year). We made copies of the Bingo Cards and handed them out to the staff. The manager would then pull a Bingo number and email the number out in the subject line of the email. The email pops up on everyone’s screen, with the number in the subject line, and they mark their sheet.
It’s not disruptive to patient scheduling and the verifiers can play while they’re on hold with insurance companies. If they are busy, the numbers are all in their email and they can easily catch up. The first one to email back ‘Bingo!’ wins. As far as prizes, we planted succulents in dollar store pots, gave out movie theater-sized boxes of candy, or water bottles or mugs filled with M&M’s.”
Nacho Cart
“I went to Gordon’s Foods and bought a large can of nacho cheese, paper holders and several bags of taco chips. It cost me around 16 dollars for 60 people. What makes it special is, I put the slow cooker with the cheese in a cart and walked around the department serving it to my staff. It gave me the opportunity to thank each staff member and let them know how much I appreciate the work they do for our patients.”
Pancake Day
“I brought in pancake mix, syrup, oranges and bananas. It cost 25 to 30 dollars for 60 people. I put on my apron and started serving up pancakes. I started with the early shift and ended with the 10:30 (late shift). Again, it’s not just the food they appreciated. It’s the fact that we managers were thanking everyone as they walked in. It was a great way to connect.”
Cupcakes
“I’m a baker and like to make Cupcake Wars types of cupcakes. Not everyone’s a baker, but you can tap into the skills of your managers as well.”
Employee of the Month Board
“Appreciation doesn’t need to be just for a week. Each team had a monthly employee appreciation bulletin board (Employee of the Month). The team members post notes of appreciation to their teammates when they find that they’re going above and beyond. On the first of the month, the manager takes down the notes and puts them in a hat and pulls out one. She then sends an email to the team with that employee’s name and what they did to be nominated for “Employee of the Month.” That employee got a small prize (a plant, $10 gift card to the cafeteria, etc.).”
More Patient Access Week Ideas
On top of the ideas Joyce provided, you can find other fun activities on NAHAM’s website. If you’re looking for more prize options, visit NAHAM’s online store featuring promotional items for Patient Access Week. And don’t forget to share your activities and recognize your patient access employees on social media!
In addition to celebrating Patient Access Week, you can also find ideas for promoting other health observances throughout the year here, and a detailed calendar of the year’s health observances and recognition days here.
#AccessWeek #PatientAccessWeek #JoyceBryant #patientaccessemployees #patientaccess