A case study using a patient satisfaction survey to improve the delivery and effectiveness of drug addiction treatment services: marketing implications and organizational impact.

Drug abuse and addiction continues to negatively impact many lives in this country. The United States health care system has grappled with how to best serve this vulnerable population. Since the personal and societal costs of addiction are high, all recent iterations of the United States strategic health plans (such as Healthy People 2010) have prioritized this area for improvement. At the local level, health care providers who care for those with addictions are challenged with shrinking insurance coverage for services, a difficult patient population, lack of treatment options, growing ranks of indigent patients, as well as a plethora of additional management challenges. It is known that successful treatment is integrally linked with patient satisfaction with services. The most critical factors in successful addiction treatment (from a patient's perspective) are (1) their belief that the counselor cares about them and, (2) their belief that they can recover. This paper reports a case study in the use of a patient satisfaction survey as a quality management/service refinement tool within a methadone treatment setting. Results indicate that the use of the survey itself provides patients with a tangible cue supporting the presence of the critical success factors. Further, the use of a survey provides a baseline for future measurements and trending. The paper concludes with a discussion of the marketing and organizational implications of incorporating the patient satisfaction survey into the ongoing delivery program for addiction services.