“The patient satisfaction survey is the voice of the customer.”Explore This Issue
March 2011—Elizabeth W. Woodcock, MBA, FACMPE, CPC
Watson’s survey focuses on customer service from the check-in process through the clinical visit to the checkout desk. Questions explore not only physician care but also the efficiency of services provided by medical assistants and office staff, especially respect for the patient’s time. “Many patients take time off from work and they want to be seen as quickly as possible,” Watson said. “They’re our customers, and we need to treat them right if we want them to come back.”
Karen Boyd, COPM, CMM, practice manager at Ashland ENT, Allergy & Hearing Aid Center in Ohio, has surveyed patients across the practice, which includes allergy and general otolaryngology, and also conducted a survey focused exclusively on hearing aid patients. Boyd used a paper-based tool offered through the Association of Otolaryngology Administrators but wants to develop an in-house tool that is economical for a solo practice. She welcomes the ABOto initiative.
“This may be the time for associations like the Association of Otolaryngology Administrators (AOA) and the American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery (AAO-HNS) to work together and develop something that’s easily accessible and cost-effective for practices,” Boyd said. “It’s important that patients know we care enough to request their feedback.”
Through Part IV of MOC, the ABOto plans to conduct patient satisfaction surveys both for outpatient visits and surgical procedures. The ABMS has developed seven “core” questions for use across all patient satisfaction surveys, both in surgical and nonsurgical settings, according to Dr. Gluckman. (See “12 Patient Satisfaction Questions,” p. 19.) These are derived from the Clinician and Group Survey in the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality’s CAHPS survey and reporting kits, which can be downloaded at cahps.ahrq.gov/cahpskit.
“Exactly when we’re going to implement them, and in what form, nobody knows just yet, but this is going to be the start of our technique to evaluate quality of care,” Dr. Gluckman said.
The correlation between patient satisfaction and surgical outcomes is spurious at best, Dr. Gluckman added, acknowledging that some physicians are skeptical about the value of patient satisfaction surveys in improving the delivery of clinical care. Nevertheless, he and others insist that the surveys can provide useful feedback to help physicians improve clinical practice.
“Patient satisfaction surveys, in their most simplistic manner, are all about communication between patients and physicians,” Dr. Gluckman said.