Here’s what to ask patients in a survey
Here’s what to ask patients in a survey
Tips for developing a satisfaction survey
A patient satisfaction survey doesn’t have to be lengthy, but it should contain questions that will help you discover what patients don’t like about your practice and make appropriate changes, the experts say.
Above all, don’t just ask questions that you know will generate positive answers. That will defeat your purpose, says Andrea Eliscu, president and chief executive officer of Medical Marketing Inc., an Orlando, FL, firm that specializes in public relations, marketing, and strategic planning for physician practices.
Here are some areas you should cover in your patient satisfaction survey:
• Access to care. This includes how long it took for the patient to get an appointment, length of time spent in the waiting room and examining room, and how long it takes for phone calls to be returned during office hours and after hours.
• Communications. This might cover whether the patient felt the physician listened to them, how clear the physician’s or nurse’s explanations were, and whether the patient got all the information he or she needed.
• Quality of care. These questions cover how satisfied patients are with the physician’s technical skills, the level of interest expressed in the patients’ well-being, whether the patients feel they received good care, and whether they would recommend the provider to a friend or relative.
• Respect and courtesy. This should be applied to all staff who come in contact with the patient.
• Practice-specific questions. This is a good place in which to get an idea of how responsive patients would be to changes in your practice, says Nancy Bundek, PhD, product manager for the survey solutions team at Pfizer Health Solutions.
"If you have opened a new clinic or are considering offering vaccinations for senior citizens on Saturday mornings or want to do cancer screenings — such as mammograms or prostate screenings — in the evening, this offers a chance to gauge patient reaction," she adds. "Basically, a physician group can gain some really good insight into a patient perception of the access to care, the quality of care that was delivered, or satisfaction with the patient-physician interaction."
Be sure to add a place for comments, suggests Mary Malone, MS, JD, CHE, vice president of Press Ganey Associates in South Bend, IN.
"The comments on the form are really helpful as well. It helps to look at quantitative and qualitative data," Malone says.
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