WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. – Following the Nov. 4 election, victorious candidates will get to work making good on their campaign promises for the economy, Iraq, the environment and health care. But when it comes to improving health care, voters may not want to wait on their elected officials. According to patient satisfaction expert Dr. Steve Feldman, patients should be giving their feedback directly to their doctors who are ready and willing to make immediate improvements in their health care delivery.
“We don’t know whether politicians listen to their constituents on health care issues in order to effect change, but we do know that doctors listen to feedback from patients and take action to improve the patient experience,”
As a long-time patient satisfaction advocate, Dr. Feldman created DrScore.com, a Web site where patients can rate their satisfaction with physicians via online, interactive surveys. Results from these anonymous surveys are then provided back to the participating physicians on a monthly basis highlighting both negative and positive feedback. According to research findings collected through DrScore.com and published in the journal “Medical Practice Management,”
“The detailed reports allow doctors to ‘drill down’ into the data to determine ways to improve their patient care,” Dr. Feldman explains. “This feedback includes everything from their experience in the lobby to final treatment. And, our experience has shown a balance of both positive and negative feedback. Negative feedback is a real gift because you are helping the doctor do what they ultimately want to do most, which is please their patients and give them great medical care. But positive feedback is important, too, because it helps doctors validate what they are doing right.”
Dr. Feldman says patient feedback helped him become a better doctor. “I specialize in psoriasis management, and many times I can tell from the door of the office that a patient has psoriasis, and I could write the prescription for medication as I’m walking into the room,” he says. “But if I did that, I would leave the patient feeling like I didn’t spend any time with him and didn’t care about him — and that patient probably wouldn’t trust my judgment and wouldn’t use the medications I prescribed or follow my treatment plan.”
By enabling patients to give specific, detailed feedback to their doctors, and for their doctors to then be able to act on that information on a regular basis, the DrScore Web site creates a continual improvement process that results in more satisfied patients who in turn follow their doctors’ orders — which ultimately results in improved health care and reduced costs.
“Good medicine is about so much more than just giving the patient the right diagnosis and the right treatment,” Dr. Feldman says. “If Americans throughout the country will provide patient feedback — good and bad — that is one very patriotic way to help improve health care in the United States.”
About DrScore.com
Started by Steve Feldman, M.D., DrScore.com is an interactive online survey site where patients can rate their physicians and perform physician searches. DrScore’s mission is to improve medical care by giving patients a forum for rating their physicians, and by giving doctors means of receiving unbiased, detailed feedback in order to continually improve and provide a high level of service. For more information, visit www.drscore.com.
