While written reviews and verbal feedback are certainly helpful for measuring the success of a healthcare practice, patient satisfaction surveys are a must.
Post-visit patient satisfaction surveys are becoming common practice for healthcare providers for several reasons, but most notably to help improve reputation and the patient experience.
Custom surveys written specifically about your practice and for your patients can provide you with both qualitative and quantitative data which can be used to tangibly improve your practice and reputation.
What is a Patient Satisfaction Survey?
Patient satisfaction is not always observable, which is why surveying your patients after their visit is imperative. Surveys can go far beyond simple answers or short feedback that office staff receives while patients are in the office.
A patient satisfaction survey is a curated system of questions about a patient’s full experience with your medical practice, from initial contact through the end of their visit and beyond.
The results are an easily digestible, anonymous, and subjective summary of how patients feel their visit went.
Why Are Patient Satisfaction Surveys Important?
Healthcare practices must know exactly how patients are feeling in order to continuously improve the experience.
There are many more reasons why you should always conduct a patient satisfaction survey after a visit, but here are our top three.
Find out how patients feel, and why
A happy patient may not express to staff how great their visit was, and in the same way, an unhappy patient may not let you know that they didn’t love their time with you.
Instead, you may not ever hear from these patients again, with little to no understanding as to why they do (or do not) return for care.
Without checking the proverbial pulse of your patients, you will never know how the majority of them are feeling, or why they are feeling that way.
Show them you care about their time with you
When patients feel valued, they are more likely to come back and may even start referring to their friends and family.
Even the most unhappy patient can be saved with the right retention strategies, which should include checking in with how their visit went and offering resolutions to their grievances.
When patients feel seen, they are more likely to be satisfied with a resolution. Always offer a way to contact the office on a survey, for patients to connect with staff to discuss any concerns they may have had with their visit.
Discover what changes to implement to improve the patient experience
The best medical practices are continuously striving to improve their patient experience and reputation. What better way to come up with improvement strategies than to get them directly from patients?
Survey results can help you and your staff choose what changes to make and how to improve both in daily management and your long-term operations.
15 Patient Satisfaction Survey Questions to Ask
When beginning to draft your questions, remember that it’s a best practice to use a 5-point ‘Likert’ scale for questions with heavier answers than “yes” or “no.”
This provides both you and the patient with more freedom and specificity with their answers while keeping the survey fast and easy to answer.
Your own survey questions will, of course, vary, depending on your practice’s needs. Here are some top questions and answer choices to get you started.
#1. How easy did you find the appointment booking experience?
- Very difficult
- Difficult
- Neutral
- Easy
- Very easy
#2. Did you find that the staff members were empathetic to your needs?
- Not at all empathetic
- Not very empathetic
- Neutral
- Somewhat empathetic
- Very empathetic
#3. What was your wait time before seeing the doctor/specialist?
- Over 40 minutes
- 30-40 minutes
- 20-30 minutes
- 10-20 minutes
- 0-10 minutes
#4. How satisfied were you with the doctor/specialist you saw today?
- Very dissatisfied
- Dissatisfied
- Neutral
- Somewhat satisfied
- Very satisfied
#5. Overall, how satisfied were you with your entire experience with us today?
- Very dissatisfied
- Dissatisfied
- Neutral
- Somewhat satisfied
- Very satisfied
#6. How satisfied are you with the overall cleanliness of our facility?
- Very dissatisfied
- Dissatisfied
- Neutral
- Somewhat satisfied
- Very satisfied
#7. How likely are you to refer a friend or family member to us?
- Not very likely
- Probably not likely
- Neutral
- Somewhat likely
- Very likely
#8. How satisfied are you with office staff interactions?
- Very dissatisfied
- Dissatisfied
- Neutral
- Somewhat satisfied
- Very satisfied
#9. How well were your evaluation and treatment options explained?
- Not well at all
- Not very well
- Neutral
- Somewhat well
- Very well
#10. How easy was it to navigate to/find our office?
- Very difficult
- Difficult
- Neutral
- Somewhat easy
- Very easy
#11. How satisfied were you with the insurance/payment process?
- Very dissatisfied
- Dissatisfied
- Neutral
- Somewhat satisfied
- Very satisfied
#12. How likely are you to continue your care plan with us?
- Not very likely
- Probably not likely
- Neutral
- Somewhat likely
- Very likely
It is also wise to include at least one open-ended question to offer patients space to speak freely, such as:
#13. What are some things you feel we can improve upon?
#14. Was there anything about your visit that you particularly liked/disliked, and why?
#15. Is there anything else you would like to add about your visit with us?
These questions will get you started with obtaining genuine patient feedback but can be further tailored more specifically to your practice’s needs, your patient base, etc.
More specific survey questions can provide your practice with a more thorough understanding of how patients are feeling about their experiences.
How to Manage the Patient Satisfaction Survey Process
Managing patient satisfaction surveys can require many resources such as dedicated staff and large amounts of time, which may not be conducive to a busy practice. Along with patient satisfaction surveys, there are several other ways to gauge how your patients are feeling about their visits with you. GMR Web Team offers patient satisfaction insights and patient experience dashboard, where all patient feedback is gathered in one place for simple review and sorting.
Whether from online reviews or satisfaction surveys, you can view all patient feedback and analysis in one intuitive place. This saves staff time and headaches and allows you to focus on improving the patient experience.