A study found patients may rate physicians differently depending on the practice setting, according to Fox News.
Annals of Emergency Medicine published a study, in which researchers compared patient satisfaction surveys they collected from three different locations, which the same set of physicians staffed. One setting was Camden, N.J.-based Cooper University Hospital's emergency department and the other settings were urgent care sites in nearby suburbs.
The surveys asked patients to rate physicians on a scale of one (very poor) to five (very good) on different quality measures, such as how much their physician listened to them, how courteous the physician was, whether the physician told the patient about his/her treatment as well as his/her concern for the patient's comfort.
Here are five insights:
1. In the emergency room setting, all of the physicians' average scores for each courtesy question were between one third and one half point lower.
2. The authors noted it is difficult to determine the reason for the discrepancy due to other factors such as wait times and how other staff members treated the patients.
3. Urgent care centers often have limited hours and also shorter wait times than hospitals.
4. Some medical professionals argue these quality ratings should compare similar types of settings.
5. "Our study shows that satisfaction scores patients give their physicians are influenced by factors other than just the patient-physician relationship," said Christopher Jones, MD, Cooper Medical School and the study's lead author. "Until we determine how to control for these other factors, we should be very cautious about using satisfaction scores to make comparisons between different physicians."
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