According to a Women In Optometry popup poll, few practices are truly measuring the satisfaction of their patients. Even fewer are using it as a staff training or office improvement tool, with less than 16% of responding ODs discussing patient satisfaction measurement tools and strategies with staff. For the majority of respondents (57.9%), they admitted to focusing on patient satisfaction “occasionally,” but there’s much to be gained by understanding how happy your patients are.

Here are a few ways you can measure patient satisfaction in your practice.

Online Reviews

Online reviews are the most commonly used form of patient satisfaction measurement according to the popup poll. Many practices will check their reviews once a month, ensuring there’s nothing negative listed. While this is a way to measure satisfaction, reviews don’t always tell the full story. Usually, online reviews are reserved for the very best and worst experiences, meaning that people rarely take the time to review an experience unless it was amazing or awful.

So, while you want to hear if someone had a terrific or terrible experience, you also want to hear if your checkout process is a little clunky or if the front desk staff greeted the patient enthusiastically. Online reviews likely won’t share this level of detail, so it’s difficult to know the “full story.”

In-Office Feedback Forms

Another form of patient satisfaction measurement can be in-office feedback forms. While you’re more likely to catch all types of experiences (the good, the bad, and everything in between), you still may not be getting the full story. Patients may feel uncomfortable filling out the paperwork whilst being in the office they’re reviewing, and if left to the end of the appointment, it can be difficult to get patients to complete them. Additionally, some staff members may not feel comfortable asking patients for their feedback, which can create an even larger gap in feedback receipts.

Patient Surveys

Patient surveys are arguably the most beneficial mode of patient satisfaction measurement because they allow for the most opportunity for honest feedback. In a Review of Optometric Business article, author Ken Krivacic, OD, MBA, said that surveys provide a way to understand “what [patients] liked and what they didn’t like about their experience in our office.” From there, he uses the feedback to amplify what is liked and address and correct what isn’t.

While surveys do provide the most honest feedback, Dr. Krivacic still warns ODs to prepare for “low response rates.” The average survey response rate sits around 10%, and while you can consider incentives, it may influence the responses received.

Next Steps

Okay, you want to start measuring your patients’ satisfaction. Where should you start? Dr. Krivacic suggests the following steps:

STEP ONE: CHOOSE

Choose the avenue of measurement that best works for. If it’s patient surveys, find a platform to launch them. It may be as easy as determining if your current patient outreach program/software has this capability, or you can use an online survey manager like Survey Monkey, Microsoft Forms, or Google Forms.

STEP TWO: ARTICULATE

Determine what answers you want to know and make sure your survey is worded in a way to receive meaningful responses (preferably not just yes or no for all questions). This can be the question and/or response provided. An example can be:

Question: What did you think about our optical selection?

Answer options:

• Very satisfied
• Satisfied
• Neutral
• Too many options
• Not enough options
• Other

For many survey programs, the “other” option can come with a “fill-in-the-blank” section for them to further explain their response. This is important to add if you have an “other” option. It’s also important to note that you should limit your survey to selectable responses vs. open-ended questions to improve your chances of receiving responses.

STEP THREE: ACT

Finally, you need to set up a cadence for reviewing the measurement and an action plan for implementing the changes you can based on the responses. Dr. Krivacic learned that his patients were interested in Saturday hours, so he added an associate doctor whose hours included Saturdays.

It’s critical to be open minded and accept the feedback. Even if it’s a negative response to something you like or thought you were doing for patients, you may need to consider changing it. On the contrary, one negative response does not necessarily require action. However, if the majority of patients respond the same, it’s time to make the adjustment.

Finally, feedback isn’t always negative. Patient surveys also provide an opportunity for positive reinforcement for staff members. Dr. Krivacic said that most of the comments they receive “center on the great experience a patient had with a staff member.” If this ends up being the case for your team, make sure you share the positive feedback with your team publicly to encourage that staff member and others to continue this great behavior.

Are you ready to formally measure patient satisfaction?