6 Patient Experience Metrics You Should Track (And How to Improve Them)

Patient experience is a major factor that sets successful practices apart from struggling ones. But without tracking important patient experience metrics, practice owners are simply working hard and hoping for the best. A great first impression, after-hours support, feeling listened to, and being treated with kindness all matter for patient trust. However, these core elements of patient experience matter for practice performance too. In this article, we take a look at 7 key metrics that all practices should track, and how to move the numbers in the right direction.

Front Desk Metrics Every Healthcare Practice Should Track

So where do you start? Here is a list of 7 important metrics every practice can start tracking today. It doesn’t have to be complicated; find the easiest route to tracking and stick with it.

1. Call Answer Rate

Every missed call is a missed opportunity; that’s why call answer rate matters. Whether it’s a new patient inquiry or an existing patient looking for updates, every missed call has an impact on your practice. Fortunately, this is a straightforward one to track and improve. Most phone systems can provide a report on missed calls. You can then improve staffing during your busiest call times, or work with a call answering service to ensure no calls are missed, even after hours.

2. Average Hold Time

Patient wait times to reach your practice can be the biggest source of frustration. We recently surveyed 6,000 consumers about patient experience, asking what they found most frustrating when contacting a practice. The number one answer was being placed on hold.* People are often calling before work, on a lunch break, or while juggling childcare; long hold times could result in delayed or missed care. Most VoIP providers track hold time as a standard average metric. You should look to reduce hold times overall, but dig deeper into when they occur. Could you increase staff availability at these hours? You might also consider an overflow answering service to handle calls when all of your internal staff members are busy.

*We asked:  Which, if any, of the following scenarios do you find most frustrating when contacting a business? Being placed on hold (31%) (c) OnePoll 2026; base n = 6000

3. First Call Resolution

Reducing the number of repeat calls your practice receives can have a huge impact on both practice efficiency and patient confidence. Consider the routine questions patients often have to call to ask. It might be simple things like parking or whether your practice is accessible. Try to provide information that answers these common questions on your website and in patient emails. You might also consider how you send appointment confirmations and reminders, to avoid patients calling to confirm their appointment time.

4. Appointment Scheduling Efficiency

No-shows are one of the biggest challenges faced by healthcare practices, so it is likely you already track the number of no-shows each month. But how does measuring no-shows impact patient experience? If anything, the patient has let you down, right? Not necessarily. When you make it easy to reschedule appointments and make it clear to patients how to do so, they are more likely to reschedule than to simply not show up. Similarly, when you send timely appointment reminders, patients are less likely to forget about their appointment. Busy phone lines, lack of online scheduling and rescheduling tools for patients, and confusing information about how to cancel an appointment all fuel no-shows – and make for a poor patient experience.

5. Patient Wait Times

If your patient wait times are stagnant, or you are seeing an increase in the time patients are waiting to be seen, you are not alone. A new MGMA Stat poll from July 2026 showed that 28% of practices report that patient wait times are longer than they were in 2025. Add to this that a patient survey from NRC Health found that 63% of patients would choose a new healthcare provider if they faced consistently long wait times. However, part of the challenge with wait times can be overcome simply by managing expectations, communicating clearly, and improving the patient experience.  An NRC Health Market Insights Study uncovered three things providers can do  to minimize frustrations with wait times:

• Receive regular updates from the front desk on expected wait times.
• Have meaningful time with care providers
• Enjoy comfortable waiting areas.

6. Patient Satisfaction Scores

Patient satisfaction metrics are essentially a scorecard for all aspects of the patient experience. There are many ways to track patient satisfaction, including surveys, feedback forms, online reviews, and your Net Promoter Score (NPS). But what aspects of the patient experience should you fix to improve your scores? You can’t fix everything at once, so you have to focus on what will have the biggest impact and what is simple to implement. One study found that when patients flagged poor communication early, coaching doctors on their communication led to a 39% increase in patient satisfaction. A simple strategy was implemented based on patient feedback. Always be asking yourself and your team these questions:

• What concerns your patients most?
• What negative or constructive feedback do you receive regularly?
• What are your other metrics telling you?

Your strategy for improving patient satisfaction scores should be highly specific to your practice and your patients. And it doesn’t have to be complicated.

Small Improvements, Big Impact on Patient Experience

Pay attention to simple signals, like how quickly calls are answered, how long patients wait, and how they feel about their experience. Even small changes can make a huge difference to how patients see the overall experience. Working with a medical answering service can lighten their load and help ensure every patient feels cared for.

To find out how WellReceived’s medical reception service can help you improve patient experience in your practice, schedule a demo with our team.