What Patients Value in Physicians: Analyzing Drivers of Patient Satisfaction Using Physician-Rating Website Data

Area of Science:

• Healthcare Management
• Patient Satisfaction Studies
• Online Reputation Management

Background:

• Patient satisfaction is crucial for physician choice, retention, and adherence to medical advice in a competitive healthcare market.
• Physician-rating websites (PRWs) are increasingly used by patients for feedback and physician selection.
• PRWs provide valuable data for analyzing patient satisfaction and its drivers.

Purpose of the Study:

• To identify linear and nonlinear effects of perceived physician appointment service attributes on overall evaluations on PRWs.
• To understand patient valuation of different healthcare service aspects.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of a large-scale German PRW dataset (84,680 surveys, 7038 physicians).
• Regression models estimated elasticities of perceived attribute quality on overall evaluation measures.
• Classification of service attributes into diminishing, constant, or increasing returns categories.

Main Results:

• Physician pleasantness and friendliness show increasing returns (b=1.26) to overall evaluation.
• Practice cleanliness (b=1.05) and physician communication (b=0.97-1.03) have constant returns.
• Waiting room discretion, long wait times, and outdated equipment have diminishing returns (b=0.46-0.59).

Conclusions:

• Physicians can prioritize improvements based on attribute return categories to enhance online ratings.
• Study supports patient-centered healthcare management and validates PRW utility through data analysis.