Patient satisfaction

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In health care, patient satisfaction is "the degree to which the individual regards the health care service or product or the manner in which it is delivered by the provider as useful, effective, or beneficial."^[1]

This is a component of the physician-patient relationship. However, in health care delivery, patient satisfaction may conflict with quality of care. One study found "in a nationally representative sample, higher patient satisfaction was associated with less emergency department use but with greater inpatient use, higher overall health care and prescription drug expenditures, and increased mortality.". ^[2] Similarly, academic teaching hospitals may provide better outcomes than private hospitals, but patients are more satisfied with private hospitals.^[3] For another example, in low back pain patients may have more satisfaction with increased use of diagnostic tests even though the diagnostic tests do not improve health care delivery.^[4]

Physicians, who work in settings that use incentives based on patient satisfaction are more likely to order diagnostic imaging.^[5]

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