Factors Influencing Patient Satisfaction in Plastic Surgery: A Nationwide Analysis

Patient satisfaction surveys are an increasingly important part of health care, influencing the practice of physicians. Press Ganey has developed tools to assess physician and department performance that are used by 50 percent of hospitals in the United States and over 10,000 health care organizations. The authors sought to evaluate the factors that influence patient satisfaction in plastic surgery patients both locally and nationally.

A 24-item Press Ganey survey was distributed to patients of 686 participating plastic surgeons nationwide, including those at the authors' home institution. The responses from January to December of 2016 were analyzed retrospectively with Pearson correlation coefficients. The items "likelihood to recommend provider" and "likelihood to recommend practice" were correlated to all other items of the survey, as these items have been shown to be surrogates for overall satisfaction.

There were 411 survey responses from patients in the Northwell Health System and 36,836 responses from patients nationally. Items that were not well correlated (r < 0.5) with "likelihood to recommend practice" or "provider" were items such as wait time and courtesy of registration staff. The items that were best correlated (r > 0.8) with "likelihood to recommend practice" or "provider" were the patient's confidence in the care provider and the provider's concern for questions. All correlations were statistically significant (p < 0.001).

In an evolving patient centric culture, the patient's confidence and trust of the provider is more important than perception of the provider's office environment to maintaining patient loyalty and market share.