Evaluating opportunities for improved outpatient satisfaction in an interventional spine clinic: An analysis of Press Ganey® Outpatient Medical Practice Survey responses.

Objective: The Press Ganey® Outpatient Medical Practice Survey (PGOMPS) is a frequently used patient satisfaction metric comprised of provider-specific and non-provider-specific questions. The PGOMPS results are used by many administrators to improve the patient experience and are linked to physician reimbursements in some cases. This study aimed to determine the frequency of patient satisfaction for the provider-specific and non-provider-specific PGOMPS questions and their association with the likelihood of a patient recommending their provider's clinic. Design: A retrospective review. Methods: Adult patients attending a university interventional spine clinic between January 2014 and December 2019 were included in this study. We retrospectively reviewed prospectively collected patient satisfaction using PGOMPS. Data was collected within 30 days after an outpatient interventional spine clinic appointment. Satisfaction was defined as receiving a perfect total score. The frequency of perfect scores for each question was calculated. Chi-square (goodness-of-fit) analysis was performed between the number of patients who gave perfect satisfaction on all provider specific questions and the number of patients who gave perfect satisfaction for non-provider scores irrespective of their provider specific scoring. Spearman correlation between individual PGOMPS questions and the likelihood to recommend the practice question were calculated. Results: 53,118 patients patient encounters were included. 2078 (66.65%) provider-specific questions received perfect satisfaction versus 1121 (35.95%) with perfect satisfaction for non-provider specific questions (p ​< ​0.001). The five questions most likely to receive perfect satisfaction were: physician spoke using clear language (92.90%), physician friendliness/courtesy (82.74%), cleanliness of the practice (82.67%) likelihood to recommend practice (81.27%), and likelihood to recommend physician (80.96%). The 5 least likely were: convenience of office hours (64.30%), wait time (63.00%), ease of getting on phone (60.77%), information about delays (60.19%), and ability to get desired appointment (58.92%). Of the 10 questions that had the strongest correlation with likelihood to recommend the practice 7 were related to the physician. None of the 10 questions with the least correlation were related to the physician. Conclusions: Most interventional spine patients are satisfied with their providers and less satisfied with non-provider-related aspects of their encounters. Provider-specific factors carry the greatest influence in the patient's perceived satisfaction with the experience as a whole and likelihood to recommend the practice.