Improving your practice and providing the best care to your patients is priority. But not knowing your strengths or opportunities for improvement can hold you back from making progress. Sending satisfaction surveys is a simple way to recieve insight directly from your patients that will help you evolve in your practice.
Fear of hearing potential complaints may prevent you from sending satisfaction surveys to patients, but the potential for understanding your strengths and learning steps to improve easily outweighs these heistations.
In another PPMA members-only article titled "
Conduct Patient Satisfaction Surveys? You Really Should!", Lynn Homisak, PRT, CHC, SOS Healthcare Management Solutions, LLC states, "The function of a patient satisfaction survey is to help keep a finger on the pulse of the practice and determine what it is that makes your practice stand above the competition, or not."
Creating a customer satisfaction survey can be as simple or as complex as you want and depends on how you plan to utilize the results.
Software options for creating surveys:
Basic Response FormGoogle Forms and Microsoft Forms are great options for creating a simple feedback form. These tools are free to use when you create a Google or Microsoft account. Each platform provides a few question types to use (checkboxes, dropdowns, input, etc) and the system is drag-and-drop, making it easy to quickly put together a survey. Responses can be viewed individually or downloaded in a spreadsheet.
Feature Loaded FormIf you are looking for more dynamic features, you may consider Survey Monkey, TypeForm, or another platform. Systems like these incorporate features like question logic, options for HIPAA compliancy, multi-lingual surveys, receive file uploads, accept payments, and more. These platforms are much more complex and offer loads of variety for robust forms, but can require a subscription.
Integrated FormDepending if you use an email management software like Constant Contact or MailChimp, you may already have access to a form builder. What's nice about this option is that your database is already connected. All response data can be saved in the same space and you can easily send out the form to different user segments. For example, you may want to send a form to all your patients who live in a certain zip code or to those who have been patients for 5+ years. As long as your database has this information available, you're already set to go! Plus, you can even use forms as a lead generator to add people to your mailing list. For example, you may create a survey regarding what types of foot pain people have experienced in the last year and share it on social media. If an email address is required (and a disclaimer is provided), these people could me added to your email list and you would be able to start an email sequence with them to learn more about their foot pain.
What can surveys be used for?
- Satisfaction surveys after a visit (think star-rating)
- Yearly check-ins with patients
- Guaging interest for further learning (Provide a checklist of topics to see what your audience may want to learn about. Use the responses to write blog and social media posts)
- Learn how you can adapt to meet your patient's needs (Ask how your office can serve them better. It could be as simple as offering appointments one hour later on Wednesdays or the ability to request an appointment online.)
Tips for creating surveys
- Keep surveys to 5 questions or less
- Use different question types (multiple choice, drop down, rating, input, etc)
- Make sure you provide an immediate thank you message
- Consider offering an incentive for filling out the survey (if appropriate)
- Follow up within 24-48 hours regarding any responses that require attention or clarification
How are you using surveys to connect with your patients? Share your story with us through a
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