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Striking the right balance between patient ratings and job satisfaction is a growing concern in clinical practice.
While patient ratings can highlight areas for improvement, they don’t always reflect the quality of care. Many factors—like scheduling issues, office workflow, or communication with staff—can drive low scores, even when medical decisions are sound. At the same time, performance metrics tied to ratings can create stress and contribute to burnout if not implemented thoughtfully.
On Healthcasts, clinicians weighed in on how patient feedback can be used to enhance care without compromising their own well-being.
How does your practice handle feedback from patient ratings? Log in or sign up to read the full post, share your experience, and see the Consensus.
Question of the week
1. How can institutions fairly incorporate patient ratings without penalizing clinical judgment?
2. What are strategies for protecting clinicians from burnout related to performance metrics?
Comments
Key takeaways about balancing patient ratings and job satisfaction:
- Separate patient experience from clinical judgment
Patient ratings often reflect factors outside clinicians’ control—like staff interactions or wait times. Focus on actionable feedback about communication without penalizing clinical decisions. - Avoid tying ratings to pay or penalties
Linking ratings to bonuses or punishments can distort care and increase stress. Clinicians recommend using metrics for learning and coaching, not financial consequences. - Support clinician well-being
Prevent burnout by providing context, peer support, and constructive feedback. Coaching and discussion forums help clinicians interpret ratings without added pressure.
Otolaryngology/ENT
"1. Patient ratings should be used as opportunities for learning and constructive criticism. Employment and pay should not be jeopardized due to negative ratings. Prospective patients and employers can tell from the overall consensus of reviews how a practitioner is doing. I have learned that you cannot please everyone, so you are bound to get a few negative reviews once you establish yourself.
2. Patient ratings should not be factored into pay or bonuses. Whether conscious or not, these strategies can negatively affect medical decision making."
Surgeon
"1. Patient ratings often have nothing to do with clinical judgement; patients have given poor ratings for interactions with other staff, wait time, difficulty finding parking spots, etc. Focus more on patient comments and ways to improve from those, rather than the rating.
2. Do not base bonuses, etc., on performance metrics. Use them as an opportunity to improve the patient experience, but avoid financial implications."
Rheumatology
"1. Patient ratings almost always follow the same pattern. If there is praise, it is based on the physician encounter. If there is criticism, it is based on everything else: desk staff, phone, availability of appointment, cleanliness of office, parking, phlebotomy, etc. Therefore, the institution should survey, but focus only on the things that they can change, which involves looking in the mirror.
2. Don't include performance measurements. They are arbitrary and represent a very small fraction of physician encounters. Only 10-15% of patients fill out the surveys, and they are either 5 stars or 1 star."
Nephrology
"1. Patient satisfaction addresses the patient-physician interaction—not necessarily actual medical quality of care from a scientific perspective. If the patient satisfaction is low, the physician should focus attention on his/her interaction with patients. Actual quality of care, from a purely medical standpoint, needs to be assessed by colleagues.
2. Putting the performance metrics in proper perspective."
Psychiatry
"1. Unfortunately, this is hard, and to do it properly, you need time and someone dedicated to reviewing the ratings and reasons for the ratings to see if there is truth to a patient complaint. I don't believe most hospitals want to put in the time and resources into this arena. Cheaper to make providers/prescribers feel stressed and prevent bad ratings.
2. Look for an environment that is supportive. There is no other way to deal with a bad situation other than leave."
Pediatrics
"1. I think rewarding physicians who have high patient ratings with a public newsletter, shoutout at a quarterly meeting, or small gift is a good idea. I do not think pay/ bonuses should be used. I have been at organizations that use pay and then ones that do not. I know that it can cause physicians, including myself, to make clinical decisions based on what parents want instead of sticking to the guidelines.
2. It is good to get feedback, and it is good to learn strategies to help patients feel better about the experience. Having coaching sessions that teach these things, but also include teaching to use poor reviews as learning and not beating ourselves up. Basically, talking about it with others who are going through the same thing. Also, having a psychologist present on healthy interpretation of the patient's opinion."
Family Practice
"1. Survey questions need to be well thought out and separate patient experience with the various departments, such as the scheduling department or front office, vs the actual doctor. Lots of times, the patients don't have issues with the doctor or the recommendations; they have issues with scheduling, etc.
2. I don't read any reviews. Protect my own peace of mind."
Internal Medicine
"1. Allow embargo for 'bad' ratings and allow for discussion and appeal. Schedule time for feedback to discuss at the annual meeting.
2. These should not be used for any financial penalties. Find ways to make the feedback productive at review or other educational activities at the group and not the individual level."
Oncology/Hematology
"1. I think the focus should be entirely on feedback and suggestions from patients, should have nothing to do with a punitive for affect the raises or bonuses of clinicians in any way. In oncology, we often have to tell patients hard news, or have limited drugs and resources.
2. Do not publicize bad reviews across the practice. Sharing the wins is a good thing, but keeping any negative feedback private is important."
Oncology/Hematology
"1. When patients truly feel heard and understood, they value and appreciate our care and will give it high ratings. I'm glad that we're paying more attention now to how clinicians are perceived and how they communicate. This can help us identify those in need of interventions to improve their practice.
2. I don't think there's much burnout because of these metrics. Burnout is driven by many other things, like patient volume/complexity, EHR clicks and documentation burden, administrative pressures/expectations, billing, RVU targets, etc. If anything, a more meaningful connection with patients is actually an antidote to burnout, so focusing more on communication/ratings likely would help this problem, not worsen it."
Do you have a suggestion on how to ensure patient ratings don't affect personal well-being? Share your perspective and read all of the comments on the post on Healthcasts.
