Patient Satisfaction with their Acupuncture practitioners - Essay Example

This formulation is consistent with the perspective on satisfaction operated in the marketing literature. Platonova et al (2008) examines patient satisfaction as being an antecedent of patient loyalty. In addition to patient loyalty, Platonova et al (2008) includes patient trust, interpersonal relationships, switching costs, and attractiveness of alternatives as antecedents of patient loyalty. From the critical perspective, the interrelationship of patient loyalty and patient satisfaction is important for predicting patient return behavior, which in turn has effect on the projection of utilization volumes, identification of opportunities for quality improvement, and potential problems in continuity of care.

Moreover, it provides a means to assess the impact of changing satisfaction scores and the emergence of other factors on utilization according to the number of lost patients. In contemporary context, patients are becoming increasingly involved in medical decisions, in choosing health care providers and their physicians, and understanding this trend Platonova et al (2008) indicates the findings of Safran and colleagues (2001) that patient dissatisfaction with medical care significantly predicted voluntary physician switching over the following year.

The primary purpose of the study conducted by Platonova et al (2008) was to develop “a more robust understanding of the relationships among patient satisfaction, patient trust, and patient loyalty to PCPs by examining these variables in a comprehensive model”