Hospitals and many insurance carriers care about patient satisfaction. It especially matters to hospitals because insurance payments can be influenced by how patients rate the care they receive, as well as by the health of the patient, which hospitals usually report.
Many people in the health care profession are put off by this. They argue that patient satisfaction scores aren’t necessarily aligned with outcomes. Moreover, they say that trying to improve satisfaction is a waste of time.
It’s possible, however, that patient satisfaction is being rewarded already, and that the efforts we are making to highlight it aren’t helping as much as we think. That’s the topic of this week’s Healthcare Triage.
This episode was adapted from a column I wrote for the Upshot. Links to sources and further reading can be found there.
