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HCET Home > On-line Training > Family Planning – The Basics > 2. Serving the Family Planning “Customer”

Who is the family planning “customer”?

According to the National Family Planning and Reproductive Health Association (NFPRHA):

• “Contraception is basic health care for women throughout much of their lives. Women cannot simply opt out of the need to control their fertility. An average woman who wants two children will spend five years pregnant or trying to get pregnant and roughly 30 years trying to prevent pregnancy."   
• “Contraception improves the health of women and children by enabling women to plan and space their births. Women with unintended pregnancies are less likely to obtain timely or adequate prenatal care. Unintended pregnancy increases the likelihood of low birth-weight babies and infant mortality." ^[I]

• ”Contraception prevents unintended pregnancies and thereby reduces the need for abortion. The United States has one of the highest rates of unintended pregnancy among Western nations. Each year, half of the 6.3 million pregnancies in this country are unintended, and more than half of those end in abortion. ^[II] Access to family planning services also lowers the rates of STDs, including HIV, by allowing couples to receive counseling, screening services, and treatment when necessary."

• “Family planning clinics with funding from Title X (ten) primarily serve low-income women. The vast majority of Title X clients are uninsured and do not qualify for Medicaid. However anyone, regardless of income, can receive services at a Title X funded clinic. Sixty-five percent of Title X clients have incomes below the federal poverty level (earning less than $15,020 per year for a family of three). Seventy percent of women receiving subsidized family planning services are age 20 or over and 61% are white." ^[IV]

Customer Service

Four Steps to Quality Customer Service

1. LISTEN
   • Listen to what the client is asking for; concentrate on what is being said
   • Send a positive attitude by appearance, body language and sound of voice
   • Limit your talking, hear the client out, even if what they say seems irrelevant or out of line
   • Keep the client's point of view in mind

2. ASK QUESTIONS
   • Clarify what they have said
   • Identify what they need
   • Take notes

3. SOLVE
   • Provide for their need
   • Or problem solve if their need can not be met

4. THANK THE CLIENT FOR COMING
   • Thanking them ensures they will return
   • Take care of any complaints

How to Handle Dissatisfied Customers

• Listen!
• Allow the customer an opportunity to verbalize emotions
• Remain calm: Don’t let your own emotions about the situation interfere
• Acknowledge the customer’s emotions and respond accordingly
• Don’t take the customer’s comments personally
• Offer appropriate apologies and share information about the situation
• Give reasons but not excuses
• Provide the customer with options to correct the situation
• Thank the customer for allowing us to work with them to correct the matter

Customer Service Standards

• Greet a customer promptly
• When answering the phone, always identify your agency and yourself
• Always ask the caller if she or he would like to hold, before placing on hold
• Avoid using slang or confusing terminology
• Always respect customer confidentiality
• When a teen is visiting with a parent, address the teen directly, but don’t ignore the parent
• Never assume someone is heterosexual
• If a customer has to wait, explain why

What Women Want in a Health Care Encounter

• Easy accessibility, both in location and scheduling appointments
• Common courtesy
• Contact with the Nurse Practitioner
• Remembering the patient’s name
• Considering the patient’s concern for the cause of her problem
• Paying attention to details
• Not rushing

Informed Consent & Confidentiality

What is Informed Consent?

Informed Consent is more than just signing a form - (from the U.S. government’s website of The Office for Protection from Research Risks);

Informed consent is a process, not just a form. Information must be presented to enable persons to voluntarily decide whether or not to participate…It is a fundamental mechanism to ensure respect for persons through provision of thoughtful consent for a voluntary act. The procedures used in obtaining informed consent should be designed to educate the subject population in terms that they can understand. Therefore, informed consent language and its documentation…must be written in "lay language" (i.e. understandable to the people being asked to participate). The written presentation of information is used to document the basis for consent and for the subject's future reference. The consent document should be revised when deficiencies are noted or when additional information will improve the consent process.

Click below for video inform.asf 258k

Basics of Confidentiality

• Patient names and situations encountered while providing services are considered PRIVILEGED INFORMATION, not to be discussed under any circumstance away from the clinic OR at the clinic except as necessary in providing care

Confidentiality Standards

• Always speak with patients privately
• Always call patients by first name only
• Never confirm if someone is a patient or is present in the clinic
• Always follow HIPPA guidelines (see link below)
• Never give HIV results by phone
• Never acknowledge patients outside of the clinic

Pitfalls to Avoid

• Talking over cases by name with other staff
• Mentioning patients, even in the strictest confidence, to a close friend or family member
• Discussing patient situations where you can be overheard by patient(s) or other staff

Consequences of Breaking Confidentiality

• Disciplinary action, termination of employment and possible criminal charges
• Your agency could face legal action, loss of public trust and reputation
• Patients could face discrimination, embarrassment, stigma, anxiety, or domestic violence

HIPPA (Health Insurance Portability & Accountability Act of 1996)

• HIPPA requirements went into effect April 2003
• Provides protection of health data (medical history, lab, insurance information, address, Social Security Numbers, etc.)
• All health care agencies must be HIPPA compliant

For more information

• (Fact Sheet) Administrative Simplification Under HIPPA: National Standards for Transactions, Privacy, and Security
• HEP-C Alert's HIPAA

Endnotes:
[I] “The Best Intentions: Unintended Pregnancy and the Well-Being of Children and Families,” Committee on Unintended Pregnancy, Institute of Medicine, Sarah S. Brown and Leon Eisenberg, eds. 1995.
[II] Heather Boonstra, “Emergency Contraception: The Need to Increase Public Awareness,” The Guttmacher Report on Public Policy, October 2002.
[III] “Fulfilling the Promise: Public Policy and U.S Family Planning Clinics,” The Alan Guttmacher Institute, 2000.
[IV] Ibid.
[V] Dailard C, “Challenges Facing Family Planning Clinics and Title X,” The Alan Guttmacher Institute, April 2001.
[VI] “Fulfilling the Promise: Public Policy and U.S Family Planning Clinics,” The Alan Guttmacher Institute, 2000.

Self-test Questions

More than 8 million unintended pregnancies in the U.S. end in abortion each year.

True
False

True
False

 

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©2005 Health Care Education & Training, Inc.
URL: http://65.163.14.21/training/FPbasics/2serving.htm
 Last update: 03/05/08