Today, patient satisfaction fuels a healthcare professional’s (HCP) pursuit of efficiency and compassion to the highest standard. After all, having satisfied patients in your practice displays how you and your team are meeting and surpassing your goals. Given the impact patient satisfaction has on healthcare and the success of medical practices in providing patient care, and maintaining operations, measuring it is critical. With the ability to read patient satisfaction data, you can adjust your operations to position your medical practice for greater success.
What is Patient Satisfaction?
Patient satisfaction manifests a patient’s perception and evaluation of the healthcare experience from a provider — an essential indicator for measuring healthcare quality. That means patient satisfaction, high or low, allows HCPs to assess and improve upon providing timely, efficient, and patient-centered care. In other words, patient satisfaction is a metric for doctors to diagnose how happy patients are with their services. Regardless of patient outcomes, drivers of patient satisfaction dictate how patients review and rate their experience with a particular provider, staff, or an episode of the patient journey. Patients consider the safety and the security of their protected health information (PHI) a top priority as much as they prefer providers that offer remote-accessible communication and booking procedures and a fast and convenient intake process. Patient satisfaction is also closely tied to how efficiently and quickly patients heal and recover from a doctor’s intervention. Payment methods also influence patient satisfaction. These top factors of patient satisfaction boil down to these well-known elements that influence it: security, convenience, accessibility, and patient-focused care. Medical practices benefit from working to improve on these aspects of delivering healthcare.
Practices Benefit From Monitoring Patient Satisfaction Data
Patient satisfaction data reflects how they feel and what they think of their healthcare experience. Monitoring this data provides medical practices insights they need to become aware of how their services make their patients happy and content or unhappy and dissatisfied. It allows providers to create more positive experiences for patients, fulfilling a patient-centric healthcare model, putting patients at the center of the practice. Medical practices benefit from monitoring patient satisfaction data, such as increased revenue resulting from higher patient retention rates, positive reviews that attract new patients, referrals, and fewer no-shows. HCPs who listen to patients and work hard to improve their satisfaction create a better version of their medical practice.
Where to Get Patient Satisfaction Data?
Patient satisfaction surveys provide the necessary patient satisfaction data. The survey questions help providers gauge patients’ views. For example, a telemedicine patient satisfaction survey shows HCPs how they performed in a recent virtual consultation with a patient. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) introduced the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) survey in 2002 to capture patient satisfaction of hospital care. Independent medical practices also conduct surveys and other service evaluation methods such as requesting ratings and reviews on websites. Like hospitals, these efforts show how they are prospering in their patient satisfaction road map or what they need to improve. The goal is for the patient satisfaction data record to show high HCAHPS scores and ratings, and positive reviews. But, most importantly, the end game is for this data to reflect the following accurate indicators of patient satisfaction success:
Increasing their loyal patient followingExpanding their patient baseImproving efficient office workflowMotivating staff to get a high-moraleLowering operational costsIncreasing revenue
Curogram can help providers gather patient satisfaction data and improve patient satisfaction.
While it’s the responsibility of providers to acquire data and improve upon their patient satisfaction, it does not mean they have to do it alone. Health information technology advancements include software applications to help ease the work of data gathering and make sure patients experience a satisfying and happy healthcare journey. Curogram, for example, a HIPAA-compliant patient texting software, offers secure and straightforward 2-way text messaging with patients, staff, and other offices. Its features help medical practices streamline their patient communications, booking, and intake procedures. All of these features contribute to improving patient satisfaction in a medical practice. Most importantly, when considering the need to collect patient satisfaction data to improve your practice, Curogram enables medical offices to collect patient satisfaction data immediately after each patient’s appointment. Its automated, simple text surveys and Yelp/Google rating requests allow your staff to send patients simple one-line text surveys to tell you if they are happy with their care, rating you up to five stars in one click.
Patient satisfaction data helps improve medical practices.
The more knowledge HCPs acquire from collecting patient satisfaction data, the more they equip themselves with powerful tools to improve their medical practice. It’s a professional move that benefits providers and patients and directly affects patient outcomes and care efficiency, plus the success of medical practice. With Curogram’s patient-centric suite of features, collecting patient satisfaction data is easy, and you can maintain high patient satisfaction, which is integral to delivering excellent healthcare.
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