In every business, customers are the best source of information on what is working well and what could be improved. In healthcare, your customers happen to be patients.

Only when your patients (customers) are happy can you have a thriving business — which is why you need their feedback. With your finger on the pulse of patient satisfaction, you can make changes that directly impact your bottom line.

If you have some fear or hesitation around asking patients for feedback, don’t worry. That’s normal. But in an age when everything, including healthcare, has been consumerized, people are used to giving feedback. In fact, they expect it.

Beyond that, patient feedback can influence certain reimbursement-related incentives and penalties for healthcare organizations. For example, hospital Medicare payments are adjusted according to HCAHPS score, which is a measure of patient satisfaction. 

Since patient satisfaction survey software captures this valuable information for healthcare businesses, it’s important to choose a platform with ample capabilities, customization options, data analysis, and user-friendly features to provide the actionable feedback your organization needs to thrive.

The following are the most critical capabilities to look for when choosing a patient satisfaction survey software.

Feature #1: Email or Text Survey Capabilities

If you want to gather more actionable feedback, the most important step is to reach more patients with your survey.

A good patient satisfaction survey software should make it easy to reach patients using a modality they’re used to. Today, that’s usually email or text.

Some companies offer surveys via other methods, like snail mail or phone calls. But we’ve found that snail mail creates a slow, tedious process with a very low response rate.

As for phone calls, they are disruptive, requiring people to stop what they’re doing, answer the phone, and respond to questions on someone else’s schedule. This is clunky for both you and the patient, and the response rates are poor.

Email and text messaging allow patients to read and respond to surveys on their own schedules, using a low-pressure medium they prefer.

Feature #2: Not Device or Browser Specific

Patients are in a hurry, so if you want them to complete a survey, you need the process to be quick, easy, and intuitive. Requiring them to download an app, or to complete the survey on their computer but not their phone, introduces a roadblock that decreases the likelihood they’ll take action.

Instead, a good patient satisfaction survey software allows patients to complete surveys on any device — smartphone, tablet, laptop, desktop — and using any browser, whether it is Chrome, Firefox, Safari, or Edge.

Feature #3: Multiple Options for Questions

Imagine pulling up a survey and seeing a dozen fill-in-the-blank questions — all mandatory. Would you stick around? Neither will your patients.

Instead, find a patient satisfaction survey software that offers pre-defined response options, like smiley faces, rating scales, star ratings, multiple choice options, or dropdown menus. The survey instantly becomes less burdensome to patients, increasing their participation, and it also provides higher quality responses for your data gathering.

Feature #4: Multi-Language Support

Offering patients a survey in their preferred language improves engagement and ensures you get the feedback you need from your entire patient population. It also enhances the accuracy of responses. 

Finding a patient satisfaction survey software that offers support for multiple languages, like Simple Interact, can help you serve all your patients’ needs — regardless of language.

Feature #5: Multiple Survey Options

A good patient satisfaction survey software should support multiple survey options, allowing you to capture data related to your particular specialty, patient demographics, reporting needs, and preferences.

For example, some facilities may prefer a simple star rating system, while others may choose to use the Net Promoter Score (NPS). Some organizations may encourage patients to leave feedback via the survey to reduce critical reviews, while others may immediately ask patients to write an online review.

Feature #6: Survey Customization

Healthcare organizations may encounter situations that require more flexibility and customization from their patient satisfaction survey software. For instance, Federally Qualified Health Centers or FQHCs need custom annual surveys to meet changing HRSA reporting requirements. Effective, up-to-date surveys then translate into better funding based on timely data gathering and reporting.

Feature #7: Real-Time Access to Results

It can take months before you ever see the results from HCAHPS surveys, which delays your ability to take action on the feedback. Patients could be pointing out the same problem for months, and you’d have no inkling about a problem in your processes.

Since a large part of the purpose behind gathering feedback is to improve the patient experience, you need access to that data right away. Look for a patient satisfaction survey software that offers real-time access to survey results to eliminate frustrating delays and speed up your response time to issues.

Feature #8: Data-Exporting Abilities

Healthcare organizations often want to pursue further analysis of feedback data using additional analytics tools. Some might also need to embed exported data into mandatory reporting (like HRSA reports for FQHCs).

To accomplish both, choose a patient satisfaction survey software that allows easy data exporting. It saves significant time that would otherwise be spent on manual data entry, and it minimizes the likelihood of mistakes.

Demo Our Patient Satisfaction Survey Software From Simple Interact

Because surveys can improve patient satisfaction and, as a result, online reputation and patient acquisition, it’s important to invest in a patient satisfaction survey software with the essential features listed in this post.

Several software offerings are intuitive, user-friendly, and support multiple surveys, but none are as customizable or detailed as Simple Interact. If you’d like to request a demo of our patient satisfaction survey software, contact us today!