Patient Chief Complaint and Otolaryngology Referral Rationale: Discordance and Opportunities for Quality Improvement

Objective: As medical systems focus on patient satisfaction as an important care outcome, specialty clinics are tasked with continued improvement of patients’ experience. When patient expectations for a consultation differ from that of the specialty provider, dissatisfaction with the experience can occur. One source of differing expectations is discordance between the patient’s chief complaint and the clinical rationale for the consultation as...