Opioid Prescribing and Patient Satisfaction Scores Across Practice Types.

Area of Science:

• Medical research
• Health services research
• Pain management

Background:

• Physicians in the US frequently prescribe opioids, with nearly half reporting inappropriate prescribing due to patient satisfaction pressures.
• Concerns exist that patient satisfaction scores may influence opioid prescribing habits, potentially leading to suboptimal clinical decisions.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the relationship between controlled substance prescribing, patient risk factors, and Press Ganey patient satisfaction scores.
• To determine if opioid prescribing practices are associated with patient satisfaction in orthopaedic surgery and primary care settings.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of 4,229 Press Ganey survey responses and 7,232 comments from orthopaedic surgery and primary care clinics over six months.
• Examination of controlled substance prescribing patterns and patient risk profiles across different clinical sites.

Main Results:

• Overall patient satisfaction scores were high (78.3-81.3%) with minimal variation across sites.
• Satisfaction with pain control was lower (67.1-78.0%) and more variable.
• Only 0.1% of comments expressed frustration over not receiving opioids, and opioid prescriptions showed minimal association with satisfaction scores.

Conclusions:

• Physicians can confidently prescribe opioids appropriately without negatively impacting patient satisfaction scores.
• Patient satisfaction metrics appear to have a limited association with opioid prescribing decisions in these clinical settings.