QUALITY
Survey says … Patient satisfaction scores tied to quality, payment
BY AMY LYNN SORREL What do a busy office environ- ment, comfortable seats, or distant parking lots have to do with quality of care? The link may not be direct or even obvious. But in pa- tients’ eyes, these factors could color their entire health care experience and ultimately influence how well they follow their doc- tors’ orders. Payers are picking up on that link. Already Medicare ties a portion of hospital pay to patient satisfac- tion measures, and similar mandates are beginning to hit physicians. That’s just one reason, and a big one, that Texas Medical Associa- tion leaders say physicians should take the time now to understand the impact of patient satisfaction and evaluate themselves before payers or others do it for them.
But it’s about more than just money, says Ronald S. Walters, MD, an oncologist at MD Anderson Cancer
patients about their overall satisfaction with their care. “But we have a lot of
improvement we can do despite those scores being relatively high, and that’s the value of these [patient satisfaction surveys]. They give you some things to look at that you may be blind to,” Dr. Walters said. It’s those opportunities that can have a down- stream effect on care qual- ity, adds TMA Council on Health Care Quality mem- ber Cliff Fullerton, MD. The concept is not new
Happy patients can mean happy practices. Ronald S. Walters, MD, says patient surveys can give physicians useful information to help improve patients’ care experience.
Center in Houston and member of TMA’s Council on Health Care Quality. “The problem is we tend to focus on only one number, and
that’s the overall score that’s being partly linked to reimburse- ment. But in that number is a whole bunch of smaller numbers that represent opportunities to improve the experience of care, and our patients are telling that to us,” he said. Historically, physicians have received high marks — ranging from 80 percent to 90 percent — when they’ve surveyed their
but has gained attention since the Institute of Medi- cine targeted six goals for improving care in its 2001 report, Crossing the Quality Chasm (http://
bit.ly/19FKH7A). One of those goals is patient-cen- tered care, of which mea- suring patient satisfaction is a component, says Dr. Fullerton, a family physi- cian and chief officer of Population Health and Equity at Baylor Scott &
White Health in Dallas. It doesn’t mean physicians have an obligation to satisfy all of their patients’ demands. He says it is, however, a way to gauge patients’ perceptions of their care and help close the gap between patients’ wants and their actual medical needs. “We know that unnecessarily giving antibiotics for colds or doing more imaging for low back pain increases patient satis- faction scores. However, giving inappropriate services in order to meet patient expectations can lead to patient harm and pre-
March 2014 TEXAS MEDICINE 49
MATT RAINWATERS
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