Determinants of Patient Satisfaction in a Private Practice Pain Management Clinic.

BACKGROUND: Patient satisfaction is used to measure physician performance in hospital and governmental practice settings. There is limited understanding about factors affecting satisfaction in a chronic pain management setting for patients prescribed chronic opioids.
OBJECTIVE: To identify the determinants of patient satisfaction and correlation with recommended outcome measures in a private practice pain management clinic.
METHODS: We performed a 4-week quality assessment survey to define the determinants of patient satisfaction among pain management patients who were prescribed opioids. The data obtained from the survey were analyzed with descriptive and multiple regression analysis.
RESULTS: Overall provider satisfaction was 96% and clinic satisfaction was 94% for a chronic pain population prescribed opioids for over 1 year. There was no correlation between provider satisfaction and functional outcomes. Only "level of stress" correlated with positive clinic satisfaction. The remainder of the functional outcomes were not correlated with satisfaction. "Listened to you carefully about your questions and concerns," "Treated you with courtesy and respect," and "Helped you with your problem" were found to be significant predictors of provider satisfaction.
CONCLUSIONS: These results indicate that a patient's perception of a provider's engagement and concern more heavily impacts perceived satisfaction than the patient's progress. A patient's perception of his or her clinic experience is heavily influenced by the attentiveness and coordination of the entire clinic care team. Staff attentiveness and coordination may affect a patient's level of stress. Adherence to current opioid prescription guidelines did not appear to have an overall negative effect on patient satisfaction.