Doctors' Knowledge and Office Experience are More Important Than Price in Creating Patient Satisfaction October 19, 2012 News Harris poll, patient satisfaction 0 When it comes to satisfying patients as customers, practices need well-trained physicians, easy access to patients’ histories, and long appointments—or at least the impression of long appointments, according to a recent Harris Interactive Poll. Harris researchers surveyed 2,311 adults between July 16 and 23. 84% had visited a doctor’s office in the past 12 months. Of this group, 83% were satisfied or very satisfied with the encounter. But when compared with other service industries, satisfaction scores were higher for restaurants and banks and lower for car dealers and health insurers. Satisfaction with rises with the age and education of the consumer the study found. Very satisfied ratings range from 35% among ‘Echo Boomers’ (ages 18-35) to 56%among ‘Matures’ (ages 67+), and from 44% among those with a high school education or less to 52% among those with post graduate education. Dissatisfaction with most recent health care provider visits (17%) is comparable to levels observed for recent mobile phone store visits (also 17%) and health insurance company interactions (18 percent). Access to physicians via email is still available to a small percentage, but consumers still want it. For example, the service that is currently most widely available (online access to medical records) is available to 17% of patients—a number greatly outweighed by the percentage without the service available but consider it very important or important. Results show a similar disparity for all online services, including (among others) email access to doctors, online appointment setting , and online billing and payments. The greatest gap between desire and fulfillment is seen for an online cost estimator: only 6% of patients report being offered the service now, while just over three in five are without the service and describe it as either very important (26%) or important (36%). Click here to view the Harris Poll. Comments are closed.
