When it comes to giving patients timely care, ob.gyn. practices have a bit of an edge over the other primary care specialties, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality reported.
In a composite of five survey questions asking if patients received timely appointments, care, and information, 65% of ob.gyn. patients said that their physicians always provided such care, compared with 63% for pediatricians, 61% for internists, and 58% for family physicians, according to data from the Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (CAHPS) Clinician & Group Survey.
When primary care physicians (not including pediatricians) were considered as a group, 59% of respondents said that they always received timely care, compared with 64% for other specialties. Overall, 62% of respondents said that physician offices always provided timely care. The highest favorable score for any of the 16 most-reported specialties was the 69% achieved by hematology/oncology, the survey data show.
The CAHPS database includes a total of 798,967 patient responses submitted in 2014 and early 2015 by 3,962 medical practices.