Patient Satisfaction with Outpatient Medical Care in the United States

Background

Patients are taking a greater role in decisions about their care and treatment. Patient satisfaction is one important indicator of health outcomes and plays a key role in improving health service quality. While there is extensive public discussion of patients’ satisfaction with physicians, patient satisfaction with outpatient care has not been well characterized.

Objective

To characterize patients’ satisfaction with outpatient medical care in the US.

Methods

Data on 14,984 patients’ visits were obtained from a validated online patient satisfaction survey. Data from the National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey were used to assess how the demographics of the sample population compared with the demographics of patients seeing US physicians, and the analysis was limited to data on doctors with 10 or more ratings within 2004-2010 to help ensure representative scoring. Patients’ overall satisfaction with their physicians was scored on a 0-10 scale (where 10 is best and 0 is worst). Patients also reported their waiting times, how much time the doctor spent with them, and their satisfaction with several dimensions of the medical visit experience.

Results

The average overall patient satisfaction rating was 9.28. Of the 14,984 ratings, 10,510 (70.1%) were 10s and another 2291 (15.3%) were 9s. Less than 2% of the ratings were 0s or 1s (276 of the 14,984). Multivariate analysis revealed that waiting time, spending time with patient, and age category all were statistically significantly associated with patient satisfaction scores (all P <.05).

Conclusion

The great majority of patients reporting their satisfaction online are highly satisfied with their outpatient medical care.