6. A large 50-person multispecialty group held a semiannual retreat on a Saturday to review the group’s operating progress and to assess financial targets, staffing issues, and any patient issues that had arisen. Monthly financial targets and the like were always reviewed by the executive committee, but this allowed the entire partnership to be informed of the status of the group. At this meeting, the administrator presented the patient satisfaction scores, which were generally quite good. However, she did want to call attention to some disconcerting trends. “We have a staff team that is assigned to monitor social media pages,” she said. “Lately, some of our patients have posted rather disparaging remarks concerning impersonal care during their visits, now that we have transitioned to the EHR. They feel some of our doctors are only looking at the computer. We have seen these remarks on Foursquare and on some blog posts. This isn’t good. One of the staff found some really negative comments on Yelp.” “Ridiculous,” said Dr. Johnson, one of the more senior members of the group. “I have not had a single patient complain to me.

And I will admit that I do hate to look at that darn thing; it is a pain in the neck.” Two other physicians agreed with Dr. Johnson, saying no one complained to them. An assistant administrator who was responsible for the operations at the front desk, scheduling, and billing said he had reports from staff that some patients did complain to the billing department about visits with the clinical staff on discharge, but the number was small.

During the lunch break, this issue was still a topic of conversation. What is this group experiencing? Is the physician correct?