According to research by Prophet, 81 percent of consumers are unsatisfied with their healthcare experience. Now, this may make doctors question their practice, but is consumer experience only the product of healthcare treatment? While consistently improving your practice is important, improving the overall experience of your patient in your healthcare facility is equally important. This is where the patient satisfaction survey comes in.
Factors that Contribute to Patient Satisfaction in Healthcare
- Physician and Employee Behavior
- Communications
- Helpfulness and Friendliness
- Waiting Time
- Cleanliness
- Hospital Website
Asking patients about their experience is the best way to ensure that your patients leave the premises feeling content with the service. This can be done in person with paper surveys or via online surveys created using online survey tools. Online surveys bring problems in the facility to your attention and hence help you act on them before it’s too late.
The key to improving patient satisfaction is by asking them all the right questions. So, here are a few questions that should be included in a patient satisfaction questionnaire.
#1: Did you face any problem in scheduling an appointment with our facility?
If your patients have to struggle scheduling an appointment, you’re making a very bad first impression. So, if you’re focusing on improving patient satisfaction, begin with providing accessible health care.
- Ask your patients about the ease of scheduling appointments. This will also make the patient feel valued.
- Reduced time in waiting to see a provider will make your healthcare facility the first choice when patients require urgent care.
#2: How long did you have to wait before meeting the doctor?
Making patients sit in the waiting room for long durations can make your ratings come crashing down. Good healthcare service is valuing patients’ time and ensuring that they don’t have to wait for long before meeting the provider.
- Asking about the waiting time helps you keep a check on whether appointments are moving as scheduled.
- Discovering if patients are consistently waiting to be seen would help you decide how much time to leave between appointments.
#3: How was your experience with the doctor and the office staff?
Great customer service is one of the biggest contributors to the success of your healthcare facility. So, treat your patients with respect and address their problems kindly. To analyze the customer service of your healthcare facility, ask your patients about their experience with the doctor as well as the staff.
- Helps you understand what more you can do to make the patients feel comfortable.
- Helps you recognize the best members of your staff since patients may share who went out of their way to make it convenient for them.
#4: Did you get enough time to discuss your problems with the provider?
You may be brilliant with your work but if the duration of the consultation is insufficient, then your customer’s overall experience will be affected negatively. Ask this question to your patients and adjust the duration of consultation accordingly.
#5: How satisfied are you with the cleanliness of the facility?
You may be offering your patients the best healthcare in the town but if your healthcare facility isn’t clean, your patients will be hesitant in returning. Since healthcare is tasked with treating and preventing infections, maintaining cleanliness in the premises should be your priority.
So, ask your patients if they found the facility clean and its appearance good. Act immediately on anything that they complain about.
#6: How would you rate your overall experience?
Your patients may have loved the cleanliness and appearance of the facility. But if they didn’t have a good experience with the provider, then they won’t return. Providers should understand that healthcare is personal and if they aren’t respectful and trustworthy, the patients wouldn’t set a foot in the premises again.
#7: How likely are you to recommend us to your friends and family?
This is a comprehensive question that helps you find out if your patient actually loved your service. This is also a great way to grow your customer base.
#8: What could we have done better?
You may have included all the questions in the survey but giving your patients an opportunity to share their thoughts on the topics that you haven’t covered always works in your favor. If the majority of your patients are complaining about the same thing, then consider acting on it even if you didn’t think it was necessary in the first place.
While creating a feedback form, ensure that you give multiple-choice questions as well as open-ended questions. This encourages the patients to share what they loved about your facility.
Conclusion
By issuing a satisfaction survey, you can improve your overall healthcare service which eventually increases your customer base. So, make sure you add these questions in the survey and improve the experience of your patients to receive more patients.
