A study by the industry association Bitkom shows that more than half of Internet users read reviews before visiting a doctor and that these reviews are an important criterion for 57 percent of patients when choosing a doctor. So what can you do to measure and improve patient satisfaction?
Definition: What does patient satisfaction mean for your practice?
Patient satisfaction describes how well your patients' expectations of treatment, service and communication match the actual experience in your practice. In short, patients are satisfied when they feel that they are well medically cared for, treated with respect and have good organizational support.
You should always keep in mind that patient satisfaction is a highly subjective value.
“Patient satisfaction is directly linked to treatment success, as the patients themselves perceive it — i.e. not to treatment success under objective professional medical aspects.”
In common quality models such as Donabedian model Patient satisfaction is one of the most important indicators and is directly linked to structures (such as technology or personnel) and processes (procedures and communication) in a medical facility.
Criteria: What does patient satisfaction include?
The score of patient satisfaction typically comprises the following parameters:
- the medical quality experienced
- Trust in doctors and team
- the comprehensibility of information and recommendations
- the organization of the practice (appointments, waiting times, availability)
- the atmosphere in the practice rooms
- digital services and simple processes, for example when booking an appointment or payment
These evaluation parameters can in turn be broken down into further individual criteria:
- Availability of appointments and waiting time until the appointment
- Telephone and digital accessibility of the practice
- actual waiting time on site
- Friendliness and empathy of the team
- comprehensible explanation and involvement in decisions
- Cleanliness and atmosphere of the practice rooms
- digital offers such as online appointments, digital anamnesis, digital payment
- Transparency of diagnoses, treatment and costs
Important: Patient satisfaction doesn't say everything about medical quality. However, it is a central success factor for your practice marketing.
How can you measure patient satisfaction?
You can measure patient satisfaction by regularly collecting structured feedback and combining this with objective indicators from your day-to-day practice. This includes, for example, standardized questionnaires, online assessments, complaint management and data from your practice management system. In addition, online reviews on the Internet have become more important.
“Measuring patient satisfaction is therefore important for patient-centered quality management, because this is the only way you can systematically identify what is going well and where there is a need for improvement.”
What does a patient satisfaction questionnaire look like?
A patient satisfaction questionnaire should be short, clear and easy to understand. Five to ten questions that patients can answer in less than three minutes, for example on a scale of 1 to 5 or 1 to 10, are ideal.
Examples of questions:
- Overall, how satisfied were you with your visit to our practice?
- How satisfied are you with the waiting time before your appointment?
- Were you treated kindly and respectfully?
- How well were you able to understand the doctor's explanations?
- Did you feel included in decisions about your treatment?
- How would you rate the organization of the practice (appointment, registration, process)?
- How satisfied are you with our digital services (such as online appointment scheduling, digital patient admission, digital payment)?
- How likely is it that you would recommend our practice?
How can the survey be carried out?
There are various ways to conduct the survey:
- classic on paper with questionnaires that are available in the waiting room
- About tablets in practice
- with automatically sent emails or SMS after the practice appointment
- via QR codes with a link to an online form
Digital feedback processes are easy to combine with existing processes. Solutions like Nelly can, for example, link the sending of feedback emails or evaluation requests directly to digital patient admission or online payment. If the feedback is positive, a review on Google is finally accessed directly.
Which KPIs provide additional information on patient satisfaction?
In addition to individual survey results, you can also use key figures to shed light on patient satisfaction in your medical practice. This includes values such as:
- Recurrence rate and patient retention
- Number and content of complaints
- Average rating score on Google, Jameda or other health portals
- Ratio of positive to negative online reviews
- Waiting times in the practice management system
- Deadline failure rate (no-shows)
- Recommendation rate (for example with the question “How did you hear about us? “)
How can you increase patient satisfaction? 5 tips
You can increase patient satisfaction in your medical practice particularly efficiently by focusing on a few key adjustments. Five areas have a direct impact on whether you attract satisfied patients:
- organization of appointments,
- practice processes and bureaucracy,
- digital patient recording,
- Payment and billing
- as well as documentation and communication.
Many of these points can now be optimized through digital technologies and solutions. Doctors are increasingly viewing this as an opportunity. According to an investigation by Bitkom More than three quarters of doctors in Germany see digitization as an advantage for medicine.
1. Improve availability and scheduling
Accessibility and scheduling appointments are among the strongest drivers of patient satisfaction. When patients have difficulty reaching your practice by telephone, have to wait weeks for their appointment or are affected by rescheduling appointments, frustration is inevitable — regardless of the actual quality of the treatment.
What you can do specifically:
- Communicate and maintain clear telephone times
- Plan enough resources to answer the phone
- offer online appointments, preferably also for existing patients
- Plan different types of appointments with clear time windows (e.g. acute consultation, preventive care, control appointments)
- Install emergency buffers so that the entire plan doesn't tip over
Digital appointment booking and automated reminders reduce no-shows and relieve your team. This leaves more time for personal calls instead of “telephone Tetris” at registration.
2. Efficient processes and less bureaucracy
Patients come to seek medical help, not to fill out forms. Nevertheless, bureaucracy often shapes the experience: double data entries, long waiting times, ambiguity about the process. By streamlining these processes, patient satisfaction usually increases immediately.
Nelly provides support here with solutions that noticeably improve the experience for your patients. This includes the digital recording of master data and anamnesis even before the appointment, as well as electronic invoicing, automated payment processes, with factoring on request, and seamless integration into the practice management system so that data does not have to be entered multiple times.
“Every minute that your team doesn't spend with forms can be used for direct patient contacts and thus contribute to higher satisfaction.”
3. Digital patient recording
Instead of a clipboard and ballpoint pen, patients conveniently enter their personal information on their smartphones, whether in advance at home or in practice. Die digital patient recording thus contributes significantly to streamlined processes and a high level of satisfaction.
The most important benefits for your patients:
- less waiting time on site because some of the formalities are completed in advance
- understandable, structured questions that can be answered in peace
- fewer transcription errors because no one has to decipher handwritten information
- barrier-free use, for example with larger font sizes or in multiple languages
Nelly helps you with digital anamnesis and patient recording. In this way, you combine a gain in service for patients with relief for your practice team in everyday life.
“Nelly does an enormous amount of work for us. Previously, we used login software that ran on tablets but hacked frequently. Registration is now much more relaxed.” Dr. med. Georg-Eike Böhme, general practitioners in Lehel
4. Digital payment and transparent invoices
Payment and billing are sensitive issues for many patients. Incomprehensible invoices or complicated processing can cause uncertainty. Transparent processes and digital payment methods, on the other hand, make patients feel “in good hands.”
Nelly enables a digital payment with seamless integration into your practice management and high security standards. The data is processed in encrypted form, managed in accordance with GDPR and stored on servers in Germany, and Nelly is also TÜV certified.
5. Smart documentation and communication
At first glance, the documentation may appear to be a purely internal topic. However, it is closely linked to patients' perception. Well-structured documentation ensures that information is consistent, even among representatives, and that preliminary findings and treatment decisions are available in full at the appointment.
When doctors have more time to explain findings in an understandable way, trust increases. This is where AI assistants come in. They can support medical documentation by, for example, summarizing conversation content in a structured manner, pre-structuring anamneses, and preparing standard texts on findings or doctor's letters, which are checked and amended by a doctor
What is important is that AI does not replace doctors or specialists. It provides support by completing routine tasks faster. This leaves more real talk time in the treatment room — and that is exactly what patients clearly feel.
Would you like to find out more? We would be happy to advise you without obligation.
How does patient satisfaction contribute to your quality management?
Patient satisfaction and quality management (QM) in your practice are two sides of the same coin. In current quality models, patient satisfaction is considered an important outcome parameter that shows whether structures and processes are working as they should.
For your practice QM, this means:
- They define goals, for example “reduce waiting times” or “increase comprehensibility of information.”
- You set indicators, such as the average waiting time or satisfaction with the clarification in your survey.
- They collect this data regularly, for example once a year through a patient satisfaction questionnaire, and constantly evaluate (online) reviews.
- They plan measures to improve quality and check whether they have a measurable effect.
Patient satisfaction is therefore not a “nice to have”, but becomes an integral part of your control and quality management.
What are the next steps to address patient satisfaction in your practice?
You don't have to change everything at once. It is crucial that you start measuring patient satisfaction and implementing measures as a continuous process.
A possible timetable:
- Clarify the initial situation: Collect existing feedback: reviews, complaints, team feedback. Where do criticisms accumulate? Where are you specifically praised?
- Define goals: Formulate two to three specific goals, such as “Reduce average wait time by ten minutes” or “Increase your rating score to at least 4 stars.”
- Create a patient satisfaction questionnaire: Develop a short questionnaire with clear questions, including an evaluation scale and possibly a free text field. Test it with a few loyal patients and adjust as needed.
- Identify digital levers: Check which areas in your practice can be digitally improved: Nelly can provide targeted support and provide solutions that can be integrated into your current practice management system - digital patient recording, online appointment scheduling, digital payment and invoicing, automated feedback queries
- Involve team: Patient satisfaction in a doctor's practice is always teamwork. Discuss openly what changes are pending and why. Gather ideas from registration, assistance and medical team.
- Start small, evaluate consistently: For example, first introduce a digital patient recording and accompany this phase with a short survey. After a few weeks, analyze the figures and comments.
- Make successes visible: Share with the team when waiting times improve, fewer complaints are received, or the rating average rises. This strengthens motivation and shows that the effort is worthwhile.
Conclusion
Increasing patient satisfaction does not mean satisfying every patient's wish. It is about acting in a respectful, well-organized and transparent manner. Modern, digital tools create the framework. In the end, however, you and your team make the difference in direct contact with patients.
