Empathetic Listening: The Key To Better Patient Outcomes

Symptoms of a system in
need of improvement

As a medical professional, your goal is to help patients become as healthy and whole as possible. But that job is much more difficult when you're working inside a system that can hamper your ability to provide fuller, more impactful care.

You can’t help your patients achieve better health when you’re limited by factors like:

Too-short appointments

The average primary care visit lasts only about 8 minutes, which isn’t nearly long enough for you to get to know your patients or for them to discuss their health concerns fully — especially subjects that are particularly sensitive.

Specialist referrals

Unfortunately, primary care providers often act as filters for specialists, even when you could deliver patient diagnosis and treatment directly, without outsourcing. Time constraints mean that you can’t afford the individual attention and care you’d otherwise provide.

High medical costs

Many patients fear the price of treatment. They don’t see a doctor until they’re already ill or injured, heading to urgent care rather than their primary care physician. This anxiety can keep them from getting the check-ups and preventive care they need.

These are signs of a system where money is the driving motivation, not the best interest of patients and their primary care providers.

What healthcare should look like

At Vera, we’re creating a health revolution. It starts by providing a better, more proactive, comprehensive model of healthcare that serves the best interests of individual patients and patient populations while remaining cost-effective.

Our goal is to align and improve both patient and provider satisfaction by streamlining processes and minimizing the obstacles blocking you from delivering the level of care you want to provide for patients.

Advanced primary care is what healthcare ought to be:

Primary care providers and medical teams who have time to get to know their patients
A wider and more accessible range of services for patients
A focus on whole health engagement and behavior change
A data-driven approach to population health management
Coordinated care that keeps the patient and provider in the loop with specialists to eliminate gaps in context and treatment

The Vera Model:
Empathetic listening

Advanced primary care relies on creating more space, time, and opportunities for patients to gain trust in their primary care team. To help encourage this process, we apply a method called empathetic listening.

As a cornerstone of our advanced primary care services, empathetic listening is vital to creating effective primary care.

In the current healthcare environment, you may not have the time to fully assess or treat someone who comes to you for help, as you’re either required to pass them on to a specialist or move on quickly to the next patient.

Empathetic listening is the first step toward advanced primary care, enabling you to create a strong foundation for communication and engagement between you and your patients. With more time-rich appointments, you’ll be able to operate to the top of your license, delivering more of the care that you’re qualified to provide rather than unnecessarily referring patients to specialists.

We pair empathetic listening with our health coaching services to help guide behavior change, providing continual conversation and support to empower real, informed lifestyle adjustments that improve your patients’ overall wellness.

Every member of the primary care team is involved in patient health. This connection encourages patients to invest greater attention and effort into improving their own lifestyles. The primary care clinic then becomes your patients’ medical home, the most important stop on their journey to better health.

Why work for Vera

ONGOING TRAINING

All of our staff at Vera Whole Health receive ongoing training and support in empathetic listening by our Learning & Development team to ensure consistent, high standards of care.

INCREASED APPOINTMENT TIME

Our emphasis on improved primary care doesn’t end at empathetic listening. We allow for more time-rich appointments, minimizing specialist referrals and enabling you to practice to the top of your license. Our data-driven approach helps you to make focused testing and treatment suggestions for each patient, which helps you to address risk at an individual and community level.

IMPROVED EXPERIENCE

With additional support from trained health coaches experienced in behavioral change methods, patients can take practical steps toward lifelong health and wellness. Improved primary care means an improved experience for you, too. Join the health revolution by working with us.

What people are saying about Vera

In healthcare these days, it’s about how many patients you can see in the shortest amount of time for the most amount of money. But at Vera, it’s about how much time you can spend with a patient and how you can get them invested in their health. That’s something unique to Vera. It’s about getting people to invest in their health. To want to make those changes.
Briana Cranmer, MD, Vera Physician, Municipality of Anchorage

White Paper: How Empathetic Listening Improves Primary Care Patient Outcomes

At Vera, we’re using empathetic listening to inspire behavior change and drive lasting, positive health outcomes. If comprehensive, preventive, coordinated care aligns with your values, download our new white paper to learn more.

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