Patient Satisfaction with Care Providers During the COVID-19 Pandemic: An Analysis of Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems Survey Scores for In-Person and Telehealth Encounters at an Academic Medical Center

Background:Previous research has demonstrated high patient satisfaction with telehealth encounters. The objective of this study was to compare patient satisfaction scores regarding their physician using the Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS^®) surveys between in-person and telehealth outpatient encounters during the pandemic at a large academic health center.

Methods:We analyzed CAHPS patient satisfaction survey data within the UC Davis Health system between August 2020 and February 2022. The questions analyzed pertained to patients’ satisfaction with their care provider; whether they felt included in discussions, would recommend their physician, received clear explanations, and that their concerns were heard. Using logistic regression models adjusting for confounders, we compared CAHPS care provider top box scores—a score of 4 or 5 on the 5-point scale—for 5 survey items.

Results:Survey results from 76,687 (84.2%) in-person encounters and 14,404 (15.8%) telehealth encounters were evaluated. The odds of a telehealth patient giving a top box score for whether they would recommend their care provider to others were 0.97 those of an in-person patient (95% confidence interval [0.87–1.06]; p = 0.494). Similarly, there was no significant difference in odds of giving a top box score between telehealth and in-person patients for the other four questions analyzed.

Discussion:Our findings indicate that patient experience and care provider rankings for in-person care and telehealth care are comparable across a variety of specialties and conditions at a large academic health center. Future studies should investigate patient satisfaction with in-person and telehealth encounters by diagnosis and specialty.