title: Understanding patient satisfaction ratings for radiology services.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Under the Hospital Value-Based Purchasing Program of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, patient satisfaction accounts for 30% of the measures of and payments for quality of care. Understanding what drives patient satisfaction data and how the data are obtained, converted into scores, and formulated into rankings is increasingly critical for imaging departments. The objectives of this article are to describe the potential impact of patient satisfaction ratings on institutions and individuals, explain how patient satisfaction is rated and ranked, identify drivers that affect the ratings and rankings, and probe the resulting challenges unique to radiology departments.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Research results indicate that training providers to make simple modifications in their language and behavior during patient care can significantly impact patient satisfaction, which, in turn, can impact both quality-of-care ratings and the bottom line of hospitals. Training providers is a simple and cost-effective way to potentiate the clinical expression of compassion into improvement of patient satisfaction and financial reward, a national trend that no one in the game can afford to ignore.
authors.affiliation: 1 Hypnalgesics, LLC, 157 Ivy St, Brookline, MA 02446.
authors.forename: Elvira V
authors.initials: EV
authors.lastname: Lang
authors.forename: William T C
authors.initials: WT
authors.lastname: Yuh
authors.forename: Amna
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ajam
authors.forename: Ronda
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Kelly
authors.forename: Luke
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Macadam
authors.forename: Richard
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Potts
authors.forename: Nina A
authors.initials: NA
authors.lastname: Mayr
mesh_terms: D014487:Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, U.S.; D006761:Hospitals / Q000592:standards*; D006801:Humans; D007318:Inservice Training; D017060:Patient Satisfaction; D011369:Professional-Patient Relations; D058996:Quality Improvement; D011871:Radiology / Q000592:standards*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014481:United States; D062505:Value-Based Purchasing