Methods vary for finding what’s on patients’ minds
Methods vary for finding what’s on patients’ minds
Try several ways for best results
Formal patient satisfaction surveys are not the only way to find out how your patients feel about your practice.
When Tom Aug of Development Partners in Cincinnati is hired by a physician group to conduct a satisfaction audit, he looks at data from a variety of sources, including:
• Member satisfaction surveys from your health plan. If you’re a part of a managed care plan, the MCO is likely to pass on information from its member satisfaction surveys. For example, Fallon Community Health Plan of Worcester, MA, a nonprofit, federally qualified HMO with contracts with physicians throughout eastern Massachusetts, conducts a physician-specific patient satisfaction survey of its clients.
When the surveys are returned, Fallon shares the results with the individual practices and individual physicians and offers to provide interventions for outlier physicians, reports Christine Micklitsch, FACMPE, MBA, Fallon’s director of physician education and services.
• Patient complaints. If you get the same patient complaints over and over, you’ve got a place to start making improvements, says Aug. If you don’t keep a formal log, just ask your staff what people complain about, he adds.
"Many people will complain at the front desk or to the medical assistant but won’t say a word to the doctor because they fear it will affect the treatment they get," Aug says.
The Salem (OR) Clinic has one staff member who handles and resolves all patient complaints.
"In the past, patients called in and various managers dealt with the issues. There wasn’t a central funnel through which we could identify the issues," says Barbara Gunder, MA, practice administrator. Now staff refer unhappy patients to the customer service representative, who helps keep tabs on the complaints.
The patients love getting one-on-one attention from someone who isn’t trying to juggle other jobs, and the rest of the staff are relieved of the stress of handling complaints.
"It allows us to keep track of patient concerns by physician. If we see a trend, we can give immediate, direct feedback to the physician," Gunder says.
• Focus groups. Some savvy group practices have an advisory panel, made up of patients, that meets once a quarter. The patients are invited to dinner with senior staff. At dinner, patients are asked what they like about the practice, what they don’t like, and what can be improved, Aug says.
• Suggestion boxes. The Salem Clinic has put a comment box in the waiting room and encourages patients to drop in their feedback, even if they don’t get a formal survey.
• Personal interviews. Administrative staff from the Salem Clinic occasionally go into the waiting area and ask patients how they’ve been treated during their visit. The practice also has begun randomly calling patients to find out how their visit went.
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