Abstract
Purpose of Review
The aim of the study was to investigate patient satisfaction amongst academic pain management centers and associated factors.
Recent Findings
Approximately 25% of pain management centers perform better than other practices on Press Ganey surveys. The majority of respondents (96%) indicated that pain management practices were uniquely positioned to receive poorer scores on patient satisfaction surveys. The majority of respondents (20/26), who reported a reason, indicated that limiting opioid prescribing led to poor patient satisfaction scores. Eighty-three percent of respondents indicated that they received pressure from administrators to improve patient satisfaction scores.
Summary
The opioid epidemic in the USA must be addressed in order to diminish the senseless loss of life that is occurring in staggering numbers. The quality of care physicians provide has increasingly been assessed via patient satisfaction surveys. The results of these surveys often are utilized to provide financial incentives to physicians to obtain higher satisfaction scores. In the field of pain management, physicians may experience pressure to prescribe opioids in order to obtain higher patient satisfaction scores.
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Authors have no conflict of interest related to this work. Dr. Abd-Elsayed is a consultant for Medtronic, StimWave, and Avanos. Dr. Kohan is a consultant of Avanos.
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This study was awarded IRB exemption status by the University of Virginia IRB #11622. The article does not contain any studies with animal subjects performed by any of the authors.
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Gonnella, J.C., Abd-Elsayed, A. & Kohan, L. Patient Satisfaction in Academic Pain Management Centers: How Do We Compare?. Curr Pain Headache Rep 24, 76 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11916-020-00910-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11916-020-00910-7