Physician satisfaction with telemedicine and in-person visits in otolaryngology

To investigate the differential factors associated with physician satisfaction between telemedicine and in-person visits in otolaryngology. Study data included 646 telemedicine and 365 in-person encounters delivered from May–June 2020 at a tertiary center outpatient setting. Encounter-specific physician satisfaction was rated by 15 otolaryngologists using Provider Satisfaction Questionnaire (range 0–100) consisted of 5 items (patient needs addressed, patient involvement, adequacy of information given, quality of emotion support provided, and general interaction satisfaction). A multivariable linear mixed-effects model was used to explore patient demographic and clinical factors associated with physician satisfaction. Physician satisfaction scores for telemedicine and in-person visits were 83.0 [95 % CI: 77.0–88.9] and 88.1 [95 % CI: 82.5–93.6], respectively. Among telemedicine visits, physician satisfaction scores were significantly higher for follow-up (vs. new), videoconference (vs. telephone) encounters, and English-speaking patients in a multivariable model. New encounters had significantly lower satisfaction subdomain scores for adequacy of information given to the patient (β = −4.7 [95 % CI: −7.3 to −2.0], p = 0.001) and addressing the needs of the patient among telemedicine visits (β = −4.1, [95 % CI: −7.1 to −1.1], p = 0.007) while there were no differences in satisfaction scores between new vs follow-up visits among in-person visits. For non-English speaking patients, the physician satisfaction scores were significantly lower for subdomain scores assessing active patient participation (β = −13.1, [95 % CI: −13.1 to −17.4], p