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INTRODUCTION: Patient satisfaction surveys, used as a quality indicator, play a role in determining reimbursement. Quality-based payments have been used by Medicare for physician reimbursement since 2015. Numerous papers report a scoring bias associated with nonmodifiable patient demographics, such as age or gender. Our systematic review across multiple specialties determines if patient age influences patient satisfaction scores. METHODS: A focused literature search using Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines was performed using the PubMed database. Odds ratios (ORs), fixed-effects modeling, and presence of publication bias were calculated for an overall summary. RESULTS: = .242, and .139, respectively). CONCLUSIONS: A positive and statistically significant relationship exists between patient age and satisfaction scores with their physicians, meaning that older patients are more satisfied with their physician providers. This relationship was more pronounced in the outpatient setting.
Harp et al. (Wed,) studied this question.