Quantitative and qualitative assessment of patient satisfaction in a managed care plan

To study quality of care in a managed care plan recently created in Geneva (Switzerland), rye conducted patient satisfaction surveys and interviews with patients and doctors, and reviewed administrative documents of the plan. Several modifications were implemented during the study period (1993-1994) to improve the delivery of health services, but satisfaction scores increased only modestly, probably because the main problems mentioned by the enrollees remained unsolved. Both interviews and closed-format questionnaires indicated that patients who visited gatekeepers at the managed care plan were less satisfied than patients who visited specialists outside the plan, and that enrollees were dissatisfied with access to medical services. Use of both closed-format questionnaires and qualitative methods proved to be very fruitful in this study and can be recommended to researchers who engage in patient satisfaction assessment. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.