1 6 • O U T PA T I E N T S U R G E R Y M A G A Z I N E • M A R C H 2 0 1 7
• HOW'D WE DO? Shortening the patient satisfaction survey, awarding giveaways and letting
patients take surveys online dramatically improved the Center for Specialty Surgery's return rate.
Center
for
Specialty
Surgery
Boost Your Patient Satisfaction Survey Return Rate
P
atient-satisfaction surveys provide a wealth of truly valuable
information. The big challenge is getting patients to fill them
out and return them. We were getting feedback from only 20%
of our patients until we decided to look for ways to do better. Now
we're up to a 50% return rate, and we've set a goal of 70%. Here's how
we did it.
The improvements we made fall into 3 general categories: We gave
patients more options. We made the survey itself much more man-
ageable. And we created an incentive for patients to fill them out.
• Online option. Instead of relying on simply handing a survey to
patients, who may be groggy and distracted after a procedure, we
now provide several ways for patients to receive and return the sur-
vey. In addition to mailing surveys back, patients can fill them out
online and return them via email, or they can fill them out at their
doctors' offices, where we make sure we provide copies. Also, by
collecting patients' email addresses, we can gently remind them to
complete their surveys.
• Shorter survey. We also took a hard look at the survey we'd been
using and realized we were in danger of overwhelming patients with
Ideas Work
That