In the realm of value-based healthcare, a crucial aspect involves assessing the patient experience, especially in the context of Workers’ Compensation. Unfortunately, when it comes to functional orthopedic patient assessments, the validation process tends to lower ratings and overall patient satisfaction within the Workers’ Compensation domain.
The collected data encompasses key elements such as the primary payer, demographic characteristics, orthopedic subspecialties, planned provider surgical interventions, and the subsequent impact on patient satisfaction.
Patient satisfaction in Workers’ Compensation cases differs markedly from other patient populations, with those under Workers’ Compensation reporting lower overall satisfaction. Even after adjusting for various demographic factors, including age, sex, native language, race, and marital status, dissatisfied Workers’ Compensation status persists.
Notably, Workers’ Compensation status emerges as a non-modifiable independent predictor of dissatisfaction when compared to other primary payer groups in healthcare. However, further research is needed to fully grasp the factors influencing these patient satisfaction ratings.
Satisfied Workers’ Compensation patients are more likely to be male and exhibit higher mental health self-assessments. Additionally, patient satisfaction tends to improve when there is a planned surgical intervention. However, even after adjusting for factors like sex, language, race, and marital status, dissatisfied patients under Workers’ Compensation stand out. Across all patient satisfaction domains, including mental health self-assessments, Workers’ Compensation patients consistently indicate lower scores compared to other patient groups. This extends to their overall health ratings, provider ratings on a 1-to-10 scale, and their likelihood to recommend the practice to others.
Understanding patient satisfaction is crucial as these scores impact physician ratings and compensation. Existing research, such as the Press Ganey questionnaire (PGQ), offers insights into patient experience ratings, but its correlation with validated orthopedic outcome methods remains unclear. While it does connect with patient mental health measures and non-modifiable factors like distance to a medical provider, further investigation is needed to unravel the intricate factors that shape patient experience satisfaction.
The PGQ, a widely used tool, serves as a key player in grading, ranking, and reimbursing hospitals and physicians, approved by the US Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The collected data from the PGQ questionnaire, covering primary payer information, demographic details, orthopedic subspecialty, and surgical interventions, plays a crucial role in evaluating patient satisfaction, with the likelihood to recommend the practice as a primary outcome and the Care Provider subdomain as a secondary outcome.
Determining the proportion of surveys with the highest score within the Care Provider subdomain involving Workers’ Compensation status was crucial, as PGQ data tends to skew positively. The secondary outcomes from PGQ shed light on differences in overall health self-assessment, mental health self-assessment, and physician rating on a scale from 0 to 10.
Adjusting physician reimbursement reflects changes in US healthcare policy and the quality of care delivery. Workers’ Compensation cases are associated with increased healthcare resources, involving more diagnostic tests and clinical encounters for comprehensive condition treatment. Despite this, Workers’ Compensation surpasses financial reimbursement for other payers, with patients reporting poorer functional scores on validated outcome tools. The connection between Workers’ Compensation and patient satisfaction ratings remains insufficiently explored, despite the acknowledgment of poor clinical outcomes.
Examining the relationship between Workers’ Compensation and reported patient satisfaction surveys leads to a hypothesis that these scores significantly differ from non-Workers’ Compensation patients and are independent of other patient factors. This analysis impacts quality improvement measures, provider scores consideration, reimbursement, and overall clinical practice composition.
Workers’ Compensation patients, demographically distinct from those using other payers, exhibit differences in age and sex. Notably, race, native language, marital status, and education also significantly differ. Moreover, Workers’ Compensation patients are more likely to rate their overall health lower than those with private insurance or Medicaid, although not as low as Medicare patients. Workers’ Compensation patients also rate their mental health lower than privately insured patients, with no significant difference from Medicare and Medicaid patients.
Across the six evaluated domains, Workers’ Compensation patients are less likely to score higher than patients with other payers, and they give lower provider ratings on a 1-to-10 scale. This contrasts with private insurance patients and Medicare patients who notably provide higher ratings. This suggests a substantial decrease in provider scores within the patient population limitations, with practices having over 25.0% of Workers’ Compensation patients likely to score lower in provider ratings.
The likelihood of recommending the practice is crucial in understanding the correlation between patient satisfaction and primary payer, adjusting for various factors. Satisfied patients are more likely to be male, have higher mental health self-assessments, and have a scheduled surgical procedure. Workers’ Compensation patients, on the other hand, are less likely to recommend the practice and more likely to express dissatisfaction with their care.
Physicians and administrators often focus on patient satisfaction metrics, but predictors include non-modifiable patient factors like age and traveling distance. Healthcare quality is reflected in patient satisfaction but doesn’t necessarily indicate ethical or evidence-based practice compliance. Understanding determinants is crucial, as satisfaction measures and the influence of individual healthcare providers are speculative without a deeper understanding.
While outcome data between Workers’ Compensation and other patients differ, the reasons are likely multifactorial and speculative. Non-response in assessing orthopedic literature introduces bias, revealing demographic variations in Workers’ Compensation patients regarding age and sex but failing to address selection and non-response nuances. Workers’ Compensation patients assert poorer overall health and a more impacted mental health self-assessment compared to other groups, particularly private payers.
All patients, regardless of their payer status, had equal access to surgical procedures. Interestingly, Workers’ Compensation patients showed a higher likelihood of satisfaction with their surgical experiences. Existing literature highlights how satisfaction scores can be influenced by patient expectations and can also be impacted by clinician fulfillment or patient denial requests. Although patients undergoing surgical procedures consistently gave higher scores across various domains, there remains skepticism about relying on patient satisfaction as a tool for evaluating the quality of care.
Workers’ Compensation patients were more inclined to complete the questionnaire when it came to orthopedic subspecialties like hand, trauma, physical medicine, and rehabilitation. On the contrary, those with spine, foot, and ankle issues among Workers’ Compensation patients exhibited the lowest survey scores. This data raised concerns about the impact of Workers’ Compensation patient satisfaction on specific subspecialties, namely hand, physical medicine and rehabilitation, and trauma.
The divisions within the patient population had a discernible effect on PGQ satisfaction scores for Workers’ Compensation patients. Notably, a clinic with more than 10.5% Workers’ Compensation patients significantly saw a decline in its overall practice score. When utilizing patient satisfaction data for performance reviews, employment decisions, or reimbursement metrics, non-modifiable factors such as Workers’ Compensation status ratings need careful consideration, either through exclusion or adjustment.
Compared to other primary payer groups, Workers’ Compensation patients tended to express higher dissatisfaction with healthcare experiences. However, the data unveils poorly understood factors influencing patient satisfaction, both modifiable and non-modifiable. Consequently, providers might contemplate the exclusion or adjustment of Workers’ Compensation patient satisfaction ratings. Furthermore, healthcare providers must navigate the complexities of positive and negative factors that shape patient satisfaction when interpreting and applying feedback.
In conclusion, the nuanced relationship between Workers’ Compensation status and patient satisfaction underscores the intricate interplay of various factors within the healthcare landscape. While Workers’ Compensation patients exhibited a higher likelihood of satisfaction with surgical procedures, caution is warranted in relying solely on patient satisfaction scores for quality assessments. Subspecialty divisions within the patient population revealed disparities, with concerns arising about the impact on specific areas of orthopedic care.
The discernible effect on overall practice scores in clinics with a significant proportion of Workers’ Compensation patients prompts a careful reevaluation of using such metrics for performance reviews and reimbursement. The higher dissatisfaction expressed by Workers’ Compensation patients underscores the need for a deeper understanding of the complex factors influencing patient contentment. Healthcare providers must navigate these intricacies when interpreting feedback to ensure a comprehensive and balanced approach to enhancing patient satisfaction and overall care quality.
