Marketing

Patient Satisfaction Surveys: Measure to Improve!

By Ken Krivacic, OD, MBA

SYNOPSIS

Patient satisfaction surveys reveal what patients really think of your practice–and show you areas for improvement. New online tools make surveys a snap.

ACTION POINTS

SELECTonline tools to easily launch patient surveys.
FORMULATE questions to elicit meaningful responses.
IMPLEMENT office environment and staff improvements.

As with any human interaction, patients often don’t tell you and your staff the truth to your face. They may say they’re pleased when they’re not. You then are left to wonder why they don’t return to your office, or opt to buy their eyeglasses and contact lenses elsewhere. For that reason, a patient satisfaction survey can give you the insight you need to improve your service andcapture rate and the number of returning patients. Here is how my practice manages the satisfaction surveys we ask patients to complete.

Know What They Liked and Didn’t

Our practice has been using patient satisfaction reviews for over 15 years. Our main goal in using them is to get feedback from patients about what they liked and what they didn’t like about their experience in our office. Armed with that information, we aim to concentrate on the things the patients enjoyed and make that an experience all patients will have. Conversely, we want to know what went wrong and take steps to ensure those experiences are eliminated or reduced.

SELECT

Select Tool to Implement Surveys

Over the years the process we have used to administer the patient satisfaction reviews has changed. We currently use a template provided by Solutionreach, a company that provides office-to-patient communication in several areas such as appointment reminders and recalls. Part of their package includes the ability to send out patient satisfaction surveys. This process is all performed electronically and can be accessed whenever we want to review our surveys. We are also able to modify the reviews when we see the need. The modifications can be done from our office.

How Costly?

Once the initial setup is performed, the time spent sending out surveys is minimal. The software syncs with our practice management software and will send surveys to those patients who have had an eye exam in the past month. That process itself takes less than five minutes.
There was time spent trying to come up with the questions we wanted to ask and the format of the survey itself. I would estimate it took several hours to decide on the final product.
The initial cost was minimal as the ability to create and manage surveys is part of the Solutionreach product. The entire Solutionreach product costs us about $200 a month. This may sound steep to some, but what is the cost of one lost patient who will not return to your practice because of a bad experience?

FORMULATE

Formulate Questions

Click HERE for a complimentary PDF of the questionnaire we use. As you’ll see, we use a “very satisfied,” “satisfied” and “dissatisfied” scale for some questions such as “upon arrival to your appointment, were you greeted promptly and in a friendly manner?” For other questions, we might offer “yes,” “no,” and “I’m not sure” choices such as for questions like whether the patient would refer friends and family. We also might ask whether we have met the patient’s expectations. For instance, we may ask “based on the service and products you received, how do you rate our fees?” offering patients response choices ranging from “much lower than expected” to “much higher than expected.”

Anticipate a Low Response Rate

We conducted a survey of our surveys (wow this is fun!) and found that for the first six months of 2013 we sent out 1,650 surveys and 239 were returned. This amounts to a 14.5 percent rate of return. This may sound low, but surveys for any type of business are only returned 10 percent of the time.

Consider Whether to Offer Incentives to Complete Surveys

We do not offer any incentive for filling out a survey. We have debated this point within our office several times. Our current line of thinking is that we do not want to influence the answers a patient may give by providing an incentive.

IMPLEMENT

Implement Practice Improvements Based on Feedback

One area where we made a change was in office hours. Through our surveys we learned that there were a fair amount of patients who were interested in Saturday hours. We had always prided ourselves on not being open Saturdays, but due to the feedback from our patients we hired another associate doctor and part of her scheduling was to work Saturdays.
Patient feedback also convinced us to change the content shown on our patient waiting area TV. Several patients complained about having to watch certain news channels they considered were one-sided. That thought never crossed my mind ( I assumed all news was fair and unbiased). More than one survey mentioned this, so we have since changed the channel to something much lighter like a food channel or a home improvement channel.

Patient Satisfaction Surveys: A Marketing and Staff Education Investment

Cost out setting up and maintaining the surveys as a marketing expense. It gets your name in front of the patient one more time and hopefully builds a better bond between you and your patients.

Surveys send a message to your patients that you care enough about them and their experience in your office, that you want their feedback and suggestions.

Surveys let your staff know that you care enough about the patients that you a willing to gather their feedback and use it to enhance the patient experience.

Surveys are an exceptional way to provide positive reinforcement to your staff. If you are like me, you have a hard time giving out compliments. Patients do not. Most of our comments center on the great experience a patient had with a staff member. Take advantage of this and use it as a way to praise your staff or an individual. We usually do this at staff meetings. Shawn Anchor in his book “The Happiness Advantage” says: “As we have seen, even the smallest moments of positivity in the workplace can enhance efficiency, motivation, creativity and productivity. One way to do this is simply to provide frequent recognition and encouragement. As studies have shown, managers who do see a substantial increase in their employees’ productivity.”

Related ROB Articles

What Do Patients Think of You? A Net Promoter Score Will Tell You

Patient Satisfaction Surveys: Measure Expectations, Then Exceed Them

Get 360-Degree Feedback from Patients

Ken Krivacic, OD, is the owner of Las Colinas Vision Center in Irving, Texas. To contact him: kkrivacic@aol.com.

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