A critical element to a successful medical office is the physician/patient relationship. A lack of patient complaints does not always mean your practice is providing an excellent patient experience. One of the easiest ways to learn what patients truly think about your practice is with a patient satisfaction survey. This tool can allow you to improve your practice and increase patient retention. Keep reading to find out more about what makes a good patient satisfaction survey and how to create one of your own.
Important questions to include
Your survey does not need to be long. Getting the answers to these five simple questions can radically change the way you operate your practice:
- How easily were you able to schedule an appointment with our practice?
- How long were you waiting to see your provider after your scheduled appointment time?
- How comfortable were you with the appearance and cleanliness of the facility?
- How satisfied are you with the quality and effectiveness of the care you received?
- What is the likelihood you would recommend our practice to others?
Responses to these questions can show you how closely your practice aligns with your goal of providing convenient, accessible, quality patient care. You can also consider more specific goals for your practice and create unique questions to obtain crucial feedback in these areas.
Tips for creating your own patient satisfaction survey
After identifying the questions to ask, use these tips to help design the right survey for your practice.
Pinpoint what you want to learn
Identifying potential barriers to success for your practice allows you to ask questions that elicit actionable information. For example, are patients getting enough time with their doctor? Can they easily access both their health information and your team for questions or concerns? Figuring out ways your practice could improve is a key objective of creating this type of survey.
Customize the survey to your practice
While asking some common, general questions can be necessary, it is important to include questions specific to your specialty or niche. Avoid questions that can be answered with a yes or no, since that does not provide an accurate picture of how patients really feel about an issue. According to Forbes, it is also important to save room for an additional comments section at the end. This provides patients an opportunity to reveal issues you may not have been aware of or expand on the answers to a previous question.
Choose the right platform
While you may automatically assume an online platform is the way to go, the right form for your practice depends primarily on the demographic of your patient population. Are most of your patients senior citizens? In this case, you might get more responses to a phone survey or a written one taken in the office than on online.
Improve your patient retention
A practice with poor patient retention typically has a difficult time growing. Doctor Genius understands how important the patient experience is to patient retention, and we are here to help with everything from optimizing your website and digital advertising to improving your in-office efficiency. Reach out to a trained team member today to learn more about our services. Discover how Doctor Genius can help both your patients and your practice.
Doctor Genius, located at 16800 Aston Street, Suite 270, Irvine, CA 92606, provides a range of services for practice success. We seek to meet our clients’ needs by providing a variety of marketing, SEO, practice optimization tools, and coaching to transform the healthcare experience. Though we work to provide the most accurate information, the content found on this website is solely intended for entertainment purposes. Therefore, we cannot guarantee that the information provided is entirely correct. You may not use the information on this site to cure, prevent, or diagnose a perceived medical issue. If you have healthcare-related needs, please speak directly to a healthcare professional. Never self-perform medical treatments discussed on this website. All images displayed are also for entertainment purposes only, and personal experiences may differ. Please note that the business tactics mentioned on this site might not be applicable to your industry or practice.
