A Guide to Patient Feedback Surveys from Checkbox

The healthcare industry may constantly evolve, but patients will always expect to be supported with end-to-end care for their medical issues.

With this key expectation, patient feedback surveys are a supremely useful way to register and track how satisfied patients are with the care they receive at your healthcare business.

Join Checkbox as we guide you through the benefits of patient satisfaction surveys, including looking at why they are valuable, and how you can easily create them for your business. 

You can also find out how you can launch your own personalized survey in minutes with Checkbox's patient feedback template.

What are the benefits of patient satisfaction surveys?

They help you gain insight into your patients' experience

Whether you offer dental, surgical, or general medical services, your patients all want the best possible experience when under your care.

By running patient feedback surveys as a standard part of your practice, you're able to access a direct insight into your patients' journeys, and more easily identify areas for future improvement.

Your patient feedback template could include asking for viewpoints on the atmosphere and environment, or how members of staff supported patients throughout their visit – all of which will help you create a better experience. 

By better understanding how your patients feel about your service, you'll be able to continually improve and foster a loyal relationship, with more and more patients returning to your practice in the future.

They help measure the quality of your care

In medical settings, ‘care’ covers a wide range of meanings, from administration through to medical assistance, and beyond with aftercare. 

Patient feedback surveys are a great way to assess clinical results and outcomes, as their consistent structure and wide sample set allows for meaningful data analysis that results in actionable feedback.

The flexibility of a patient feedback template also allows you to ask a range of qualitative questions to help you understand how patients felt your practice performed in terms of communication, empathy, and accessibility. 

They can boost your patient engagement and loyalty

Another of the benefits of patient satisfaction surveys is that they will keep patients engaged with your practice beyond their healthcare visit. 

Patient feedback surveys create a sense of community between medical practitioner and patient, which will be reflected in stronger client relationships, and lower 'client churn'.

They will help you meet regulatory standards

Depending on the specific medical services that your practice offers, there will likely be regulatory standards requiring patient satisfaction measurement, with responses that lead to meaningful improvement. 

By factoring regulatory questions into your patient feedback template, you can ensure that your accreditation requirements are continually being met. Even a short-and-simple survey process today could help you avoid cost-intensive risks later on.

They are easy to create and use

Incorporating online patient satisfaction surveys into your regular process can lead to meaningful change, both in your business efficiency and in your relationship with patients and clients.

Surveys are easy to set up using online patient satisfaction survey templates; and once completed they're simple to draw response data from. Plus, by sending surveys directly to your patients’ inboxes, you’re making it easy for them to complete it.

They help you prioritize areas for improvement

Dedication to improvement is key for all businesses, including those in the healthcare industry. 

And the simplest and most effective way to identify focus areas for improvement and upgrade is through patient feedback. 

With direct survey feedback from patients, practitioners, medical staff, and stakeholders can prioritize improvement where it will have tangible impact.

They put the patient at the heart of your healthcare

For businesses within the healthcare industry, patients are the consumers – so it's important that you ask for feedback in a way that's convenient for them.

Instead of placing the onus on the patient to do the hard work of giving feedback, as online surveys are neither time-consuming nor difficult. Easy for them, helpful for you!

You can then make regularly surveying patients – and committing to improvements based on their feedback – all part of demonstrating that they're at the heart of your care.

They help with ongoing performance monitoring

Getting engaged, direct feedback through surveys is great – but getting it regularly is even better. 

Conducting patient feedback surveys as part of your routine administrative process is a great way to record performance over time, and to see if your changes are having the right impact. 

The key word there is ‘right’ – it's important to ensure that any changes you make are actually improving the service. Regular patient feedback surveys offer a check-in, so you'll know if what you're doing is working before it's too late.

They help create a community with your consumer

Establishing a relationship with consumers and patients by actively requesting, listening to, and responding to their feedback is a great way to boost your business’ reputation. 

Plus, if your patients are content with the service, conducting regular patient feedback surveys is a great way to receive and share this feedback.

Satisfied patients giving glowing reviews is a surefire way to boost your reputation in the community, and can often lead to new patients via word-of-mouth.

They help you tackle any issues more effectively

In unfortunate cases where there is some dissatisfaction, it is important to handle it efficiently and effectively.

This is not only important from the patient’s point of view, as they want to feel that their negative feedback is being taken seriously, but also important to mitigate any potential legal issues. 

By providing a channel for feedback – positive and negative – patients are less likely to look for their own forum, either within the wider public community or in the form of legal action.

How to Create Effective Patient Feedback Surveys

If you’re not sure where to get started, you can find Checkbox patient satisfaction survey templates and ideas in our templates library.

Some key points to remember when creating your own patient feedback template to use going forward are:

• Define the goals of the survey clearly. For patients to engage with your survey, questions need to be clearly asked and intentions need to be clearly defined. You will likely opt for different medical survey templates for post-operative care vs appointment scheduling, so each patient feedback template needs to be clear in its mission.
• Be concise. Patient feedback should be highly appreciated by medical practitioners, but it is possible to ask too much. Patients are more likely to engage with a patient feedback survey that gets to the point and asks simple questions, which prompt answers that provide clear insight.
• Vary your question type. From multiple choice and sliding scale questions to questions prompting longer-form, descriptive answers, different survey question types secure different responses and insights. This is a great way to capture diverse perspectives and maximize the potential of surveys.
• Confidentiality is key. The importance of anonymity and confidentiality in surveys cannot be overstated, and in a sensitive industry like healthcare it is even more vital. Checkbox surveys are HIPAA compliant to ensure security is locked in. As well as ensuring that your patients feel comfortable, data security and patient privacy is a core pillar of the healthcare industry, and is vital to incorporate into any surveys.
• Refine the survey. There’s no reason you shouldn’t update your patient feedback survey to ensure you’re getting the most valuable responses from it. Although you don’t want to edit your survey too often, and you should aim for surveys to be consistent enough that different results can be compared. Updating your patient feedback template to get valuable responses is all part of the process!
• Analysis and actions. What is the point of a patient feedback survey if you don’t take stock of the responses and act to implement changes? Be sure to store data (in a way that honors your confidentiality policy) for future analysis and comparison. 

Example Patient Feedback Template Survey Questions

When putting together your patient feedback template, you'll need to ensure that each question provides value for your insight. 

It can be helpful to include HCAHPS survey questions in your surveys, in order to echo survey types your clients may be familiar with and to benefit from similar feedback as other facilities. 

Here are some examples of general and HCAHPS survey questions to ask your patients:

• How satisfied were you with the clarity of communication from your healthcare provider?
• Did you feel wait times were reasonable and appropriate?
• Were you satisfied with the cleanliness of the healthcare facility?
• Did you feel that your pain was satisfactorily managed throughout your care?
• Did you receive clear instructions and support upon discharge?
• On a scale of 1 to 10, how likely are you to recommend this healthcare facility to others?

Find out more about Checkbox's easy-to-use patient satisfaction survey template.

Patient Feedback Surveys Summary

Now you know exactly what the benefits of patient satisfaction surveys are, and how you create an effective patient feedback survey that will help you tap into these.

An online survey is a cheap, effective way of getting a large range of viewpoints to help you improve your business in the ways that matter. Checkbox is trusted by thousands of companies for high quality, flexible survey creation, so request your free survey demo today.