LOS ANGELES, May 2 (UPI) -- A Los Angeles study finds that patient satisfaction appears to depend more on doctors' communication skills than the quality of care.
Researchers tracked 236 elderly patients being treated at two health maintenance organizations in the Northeast and Southwest, the New York Times reported.
Dr. John Chang of the University of California at Los Angeles Medical School said that patients who rated their doctors as having poor communications skills also tended to rate the care they received as poor. But he said that a detailed examination of the patients' records showed their evaluations were not necessarily accurate.
The research team looked at 22 medical conditions and whether the patients' doctors followed the proper guidelines.
The study was published in Annals of Internal Medicine.
