Tag Archives: Patient Satisfaction Ratings

Top 10 challenges facing physicians in 2017

Posted on by • Posted in Uncategorized • Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , • Leave a comment

http://medicaleconomics.modernmedicine.com/medical-economics/news/top-10-challenges-2017

2016 was a challenging year on many fronts for healthcare providers.

Physicians have just started to digest the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA) and its changes to physician reimbursement. A long presidential election finally reached its conclusion, but the consequences of a Republican Congress and President-elect Donald J. Trump for U.S. doctors and patients remain unclear. And running a private practice did not get any easier. Balancing the need to deal with patients who won’t listen or won’t pay while also seeking positive patient satisfaction scores remains a daily struggle for many. 

These were just some of the challenges physician readers told Medical Economics they experienced this year and anticipate continuing for the foreseeable future. 

For the fourth consecutive year, Medical Economics reveals its list of obstacles physicians will face in the coming year and, more importantly, how to overcome them. For this latest presentation, we asked readers to tell us what challenges they face each day and where they needed solutions.

Here are their responses, starting with the biggest challenge of the coming year.

Why Geisinger posts negative physician reviews

Posted on by • Posted in Uncategorized • Tagged , , , , , , , , , • Leave a comment

http://www.healthcaredive.com/news/why-geisinger-posts-negative-physician-reviews/429810/

Late last month, CMS updated its Overall Hospital Quality Star Rating program, its first update since July. In the update, 112 hospitals are now deemed five-star hospitals, up from 102 five-star hospitals in July but down from 251 in April 2015. As Becker’s Hospital Review noted, the October release includes updated data on patient experience, safety, effectiveness and timeliness of care.

The star ratings are related to patient satisfaction with care experiences based on data from the Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems Survey (HCAHPS) measures. The survey covers topics such as how well nurses and doctors communicated with patients, how responsive hospital staff were to patient needs, how clean and quiet hospital environments were and how well patients were prepared for post-hospital settings.

Opponents of the ratings have argued they oversimplify complex data and thereby convey misleading information that can harm reputations and reflect unfairly on certain hospitals. However, the move toward value-based care and transparency has led some healthcare organizations – such as Intermountain Healthcare and Geisinger Health System – to publish what patients think of them, for better or worse.

Patient stories have a greater impact on clinicians more than metrics like HCAHPS, Dr. Greg Burke, chief patient experience officer at Geisinger, told Healthcare Dive last week after a panel discussion on patient experience at U.S. News & World Report’s Healthcare of Tomorrow conference.

Geisinger serves more than 3 million residents throughout 45 counties in Pennsylvania. The physician-led system is comprised of approximately 30,000 employees, including nearly 1,600 employed physicians. It’s been in the news a bit lately due to its unorthodox move implementing its ProvenExperience money-back guarantee (It has refunded at least $400,000as of August). Burke stated that Geisinger posts about 97-98% of the comments it receives on the system’s clinicians.