Study Reveals Bottom-Ten Cities for Patient Gratification

New York & California municipalities have lion’s share of healthcare consumers who can’t get no satisfaction

America’s least satisfied healthcare consumers live in eight California and New York municipalities, according to a nationwide evaluation of online reviews of doctors.

Denver-based Vanguard Communications used special software to analyze Internet reviews on Google+ and Yelp.com websites of 46,300 healthcare providers in the 100 largest cities in the U.S.

Vanguard’s researchers tabulated the results in what the firm is calling the Happy Patient Index (HPI), providing a comparative snapshot of the state of satisfaction with American healthcare.

Cities in New York and California account for eight of the 10 unhappiest locales in the HPI.

Evaluators looked for correlations between rankings and each city’s population size and average income, age and educational attainment, as well as political leanings (blue cities versus red), and even percentage of residents with health insurance – but found no such connections.

In concert with the saying that money doesn’t buy happiness, riches do not appear to boost patient satisfaction. Three of America’s wealthiest cities rank in the 20 unhappiest with their doctors: Arlington, Virginia (median household income of $102,459, according to the U.S. Census); Huntington, New York ($105,426); and North Hempstead, New York ($104,378).

 

The ten unhappiest cities in the Happy Patient Index (HPI):

(starting with the lowest satisfaction score)

1. Bakersfield, California
2. Modesto, California
3. North Hempstead, New York
4. Sacramento, California
5. Buffalo, New York
6. Riverside, California
7. Orlando, Florida
8. San Bernardino, California
9. Washington, D.C.
10. Huntington, New York

Read more: 10 Best Cities for Patient Satisfaction