Question

A doctor's office recently received results from a National Committee for Quality Assurance survey, which indicated that 75% of patients at this office are dissatisfied with long wait times in the waiting room.

What should the doctor's office do to increase patient satisfaction?
A.) Schedule patients with serious illnesses in the morning
B.) Reduce the number of patients scheduled per time slot
C.) Extend the daily office hours until later into the evenings
D.) Decrease the amount of time spent treating each patient

Answer 1

To improve patient satisfaction due to long wait times, the doctor's office should reduce the number of patients per time slot and optimize scheduling processes.

Step-by-step explanation:

To increase patient satisfaction in response to 75% of patients being dissatisfied with long wait times, the doctor's office should consider reducing the number of patients scheduled per time slot. This change would directly address the issue of long wait times by potentially decreasing overcrowding and managing patient flow more effectively. Additionally, the office might want to assess and optimize their scheduling and patient processing methods to find other areas of improvement.

Moreover, exploring ways to keep patients informed about wait times and offering more comfortable waiting areas may also enhance overall satisfaction. However, solutions such as decreasing the amount of time spent with each patient or extending office hours could have negative impacts on the quality of care or staff work-life balance, respectively, and might not address the root cause of the dissatisfaction.