Primary Care Productivity and Patient Satisfaction Community Practice: What is the Relationship?

Research has shown a consistent positive association between patient and provider experience and improved patient outcomes and safety. There is a belief that patient satisfaction and physician productivity are competing interests. The relationship for primary care physicians, in a Midwest Health system was evaluated as part of this project. Data from Press Ganey patient satisfaction surveys on likelihood of recommending the practice and the physician were compared between primary care physicians in the top quartile of average monthly patient visits and those that were in the three lower quartiles. A secondary analysis of patient satisfaction scores related to continuous years of service was also performed. Results of a multi-level logistic regression analysis showed a statistically significant difference between quartiles on average monthly visits and the likelihood of receiving a top box score on recommendation of the practice, but not the provider. The odds ratio was 0.7 for lower quartiles compared to highest quartile of visits. There was not a statistically significant difference for the categories of continuous years of service. On the question of recommending the physician, the odds ratios were not different, although there was a significant difference for the categories of years of service, with those between 0-5 years having a 0.62 odds ratio of a top box score compared to greater than 10 years. The results would tend to refute the belief that patient satisfaction must be sacrificed for physician productivity.