Patient surveys are a great way to measure the patient experience and make sure that your optometry practice is running smoothly.
Eye care is a personal experience that encompasses not just the eye health exam. Elements that can drive patient satisfaction include:
- The way they feel when they walk into your office
- How they are greeted by your staff
- How quickly they are seen for their appointment, and more
Regularly checking in with your patients can allow you to identify your practice’s potential areas for growth, and address individual concerns directly.
At Visual-Eyes software, we have a number of options to gather information from your patients, including quick emotional check-in surveys to ensure you are meeting their expectations.
How to Create an Effective Patient Experience Survey
If you are looking for a way to improve your optometry practice’s patient experience, consider creating a survey. Surveys are one of the most effective ways to get honest feedback from patients about how they perceive your office. Patient surveys also act as an additional touch point in the overall patient journey for any optometry practice. They can help you understand how your patients feel about their experience, what they liked about your care, and what could be improved.
Once you are ready to start building your survey, there are 2 main types of questions to consider:
- Close-ended questions – this type of question asks respondents to choose from a set of predefined answers (such as “yes/no” or “agree/disagree”).
- Open-ended questions – this type of question allows respondents to write down their thoughts on the topic at hand. They can be used for qualitative research, or just as another method of gathering information from patients.
Demographic information can also be a valuable part of gaining deeper insights. Depending on how your survey is sent, this might be captured automatically for you, otherwise you might want to include demographic questions in your survey. Grouping your feedback by demographics such as age, gender, and location, can help you gain a better understanding of your respondents and identify any trends in feedback from different demographic groups.
Improving Your Practice
The most critical aspect of patient experience surveys is what you do with the data collected.
Using Surveys to Identify Trends
Patient experience surveys can help you identify areas where your practice may be falling short. For example, if multiple patients mention that they had to wait a long time to be seen, you may need to look at ways to reduce wait times. If several patients mention that they had difficulty scheduling appointments, you may need to improve your scheduling process. By addressing these issues, you can improve the overall patient experience and increase patient satisfaction.
Directly integrating patient experience surveys into the rest of your practice management software can help you to keep track of responses in one centralized location. This saves you time from worrying about logistics and allows you to focus on giving the best possible experience to each of your patients.
Responding to Individual Surveys
While looking at survey trends can be beneficial, it is also important to address certain individual survey responses. Implementing quick emotional check-in surveys can help you get a snapshot for how your patient feels about a recent experience at your practice. If a patient is not satisfied, a member of your team can reach out and directly address any concerns.
Alternatively, if a patient is satisfied with their experience, that can be an opportunity to capture a positive review or recommendation for your practice. Responding to patient surveys can be a great way to engage with your patients and ensure that they feel heard.
The Right Software Is Key
The best way to create a patient experience survey is by using practice management software that includes tools specifically designed for creating surveys.
With the right tools, you can:
- Easily build surveys and distribute them to patients through email or text message channels. This allows patients to answer questions when it is convenient for them.
- Generate reports based on survey responses to identify trends in the feedback your practice receives. This can help you identify the areas where your practice has room for growth and where you are excelling.
Visual Connect
At Visual-Eyes, we believe that effectively communicating with your patients is an essential part of building a successful optometry practice. With Visual Connect, you can easily communicate with your patients about everything from appointment recalls and reminders, to feedback surveys.
Visual Connect works seamlessly with the rest of Visual-Eyes practice management software to take the hassle out of creating, distributing, and managing patient experience surveys. With Visual Connect, you can automate follow-up texts, emails, and surveys to help you capture patient feedback at the optimal time.
Visual Connect survey’s have notification options, ensuring you are able to follow-up promptly with patient concerns. With this feedback in mind, you can provide the best care possible to each of your patients.
Simplify Your Life
At Visual-Eyes, we offer a variety of solutions to meet all of your practice’s needs. Our team of experts is here to help you implement our software and support you with one-on-one training to ensure that your staff knows how to fully utilize Visual-Eyes software. Book a demo to see how our software solutions can benefit your practice.
