Medicare uses CUSTOMER SATISFACTION scores to reimburse hospitals. This has a negative affect as it encourages a consumer mindset in the hospital (the customer is always right) and we see their satisfaction scores based off of their perception of care when they have no idea what is going on. They believe their pain should be completely gone but in many cases that is not possible, despite patient education, they perceive their pain was not tended to, therefore giving a low satisfaction score and hospitals struggling due to reimbursement issues.
This negatively affects staffing and firther perpetuates an issues to provide adeqaute patient care for nurses and ancillary staff. This needs reform.