Patient Satisfaction Survey Best Practices
MedMal Direct // June 28, 2017
Patient Satisfaction Survey Best Practices
Patient satisfaction surveys can provide you with a wealth of information about the effectiveness of your practice. However, these surveys won't help your practice grow unless you know how to use them to your benefit. Below are some tips to help you improve the way you use your patient satisfaction surveys.
1. Know what you want to evaluate.
Patient satisfactions surveys can cover any number of topics. In order to collect the right information, you must first know which aspects of your practice you hope to evaluate. Some of the most common issues evaluated with patient satisfaction surveys include the patient's experience during appointments, the quality of care received, the patients' confidence in the physician and the patient's willingness to return for further services.
2. Don't make the survey too long or involved.
Make sure that your survey is clear and concise. Patients may be less willing to complete a survey that is too lengthy or complicated. In addition, having answers to too many questions may make it more difficult for you to analyze the data you receive effectively. There are a number of free online tools to help you in this regard, with SurveyMonkey, Wufoo and SurveyPlanet ranking among the best and easiest to use.
3. Evaluate all data carefully.
Use an appropriate software program to analyze the data you receive when patients complete your surveys. Identify the questions that received responses that were more negative than you hoped and make note. You should also look for trends or sudden changes, such as a dramatic increase in negative responses to a particular question.
4. Look for ways to improve.
Once you have identified those areas in which your practice is lacking, ask yourself how you can improve on each of these issues. Prioritize those issues that affect the patient experience most profoundly.
5. Solicit specific feedback.
Although you can glean a great deal of information from patients' responses to multiple choice questions, it is also helpful to hear specific concerns or suggestions from patients. At the end of your survey, ask patients to leave comments about what they enjoyed, what you could do differently or anything else they would like to mention.
Regardless of the questions you ask on your survey, remember that the responses are likely to change over time. Monitor your results continuously to ensure that your practice is as effective and successful as it can be.
*New CMS CAHPS survey requirements are coming out in 2017. Once these requirements are finalized and clarified we will be posting new helpful information on compliance with these new requirements. Remember that CAHPS is required for groups of 100 or more EP’s but is optional for groups of 2 – 99 EP’s as a companion reporting mechanism to PQRS. For individual providers who are administering patient satisfaction surveys on their own keeping it simple and relevant as outlined above will continue to be the best way to gauge and improve your patient satisfaction.
Source
http://profitable-practice.softwareadvice.com/use-patient-satisfaction-surveys-to-improve-performance-0314/, http://www.physicianspractice.com/blog/seven-ways-improve-patient-satisfaction-survey-scores, http://my.clevelandclinic.org/ccf/media/files/Patient-Experience/OPE-Newsletter-5-26-10.pdf