Here are some of the best questions for a citizen survey about healthcare access, plus practical tips for crafting them. If you want to build a survey in seconds, you can use Specific’s easy AI tools—just generate a survey now and try it out.
The best open-ended questions for healthcare access surveys
Open-ended questions let people share their actual experiences, frustrations, and ideas. They work best early in a survey or whenever you want real stories and perspectives, not just statistics. Open-ended responses help discover the “why”—why people feel blocked, or what’s missing from the system.
For healthcare access, you can uncover insights that structured questions often miss. For example, a recent U.S. survey found over 21% of adults delayed or avoided care due to nonfinancial barriers like work or a lack of available appointments—a nuanced detail you may only get when people explain in their own words. [1]
What was your most recent experience accessing healthcare, and what stood out to you?
Are there any challenges or barriers you face when trying to get medical care?
How do wait times affect your decision to seek care?
What has helped you most when navigating the healthcare system?
Describe a time when you struggled to access the healthcare services you needed.
How do you feel about the quality and responsiveness of local healthcare providers?
What changes would make healthcare more accessible for you or your community?
Are there health services you wish were more readily available?
Can you share any stories where the healthcare system worked really well for you?
If you could improve one thing about healthcare access in your area, what would it be?
The best single-select multiple-choice questions
Use single-select multiple-choice questions when you need quantifiable data or want to make it easy for people to start sharing. People can choose an option quickly, and you can see trends across responses. It’s a low-bar way to begin—and can lead to richer feedback once a conversation is going.
Question: How easy is it for you to access healthcare services when needed?
Very easy
Somewhat easy
Somewhat difficult
Very difficult
Question: What is the main reason you might delay or avoid seeking medical care?
Cost of care
Long wait times
Scheduling conflicts (work, personal commitments)
Lack of nearby providers
Other
Question: How satisfied are you with the quality of healthcare in your area?
Very satisfied
Somewhat satisfied
Somewhat dissatisfied
Very dissatisfied
When to follow up with "why?" If someone chooses “somewhat dissatisfied,” don’t just move on—ask them why. This opens the door for stories and root causes. For example: “What’s the main reason you feel somewhat dissatisfied with your local healthcare?”
When and why to add the "Other" choice? Sometimes preset answer choices miss unique situations—so “Other” lets people share what’s actually true for them. Always ask a follow-up: “Can you describe your reason?” This approach is key to uncovering surprising trends or needs.
NPS questions: measuring advocacy in healthcare access
NPS (Net Promoter Score) is a simple way to gauge how likely people are to recommend their local healthcare system to others. For citizen feedback, it’s actionable: a declining NPS often points to access or quality challenges. This is especially relevant given that satisfaction rates with healthcare systems in OECD countries dropped by 10 percentage points between 2021 and 2023. [4]
We can add an NPS question like this: “On a scale from 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend your local healthcare services to friends and family?” To generate an NPS survey for citizens about healthcare access in seconds, try this NPS survey maker.
The power of follow-up questions
Follow-up questions unlock meaningful feedback. Instead of settling for vague replies, ask “why” or “can you elaborate?” in real time. That’s the idea behind automated AI follow-up questions in Specific: the AI acts like an expert interviewer—clarifying and probing for deeper insights, but always in a friendly, responsive way. This saves huge amounts of time compared to manual email follow-ups and makes the conversation feel natural.
Citizen: “Long wait times are a problem for me.”
AI follow-up: “How have long wait times affected your ability to get care when you needed it?”
How many followups to ask? Usually, 2-3 follow-ups are enough to get rich detail—any more, and people might tune out. The key is to stop when you’ve collected what you need. Specific’s AI lets you set this balance automatically.
This makes it a conversational survey—not just a form, but a true back-and-forth. That’s the power of conversational surveys.
Easy AI analysis: Don’t worry about wading through lots of open-text—AI now makes it simple to analyze all your responses and find common threads, even across messy or nuanced feedback. Large volumes of qualitative data are no longer a blocker.
These automated follow-ups are new for many people—try generating a sample survey with Specific and experience just how much richer your citizen feedback can become.
Prompting AI to create better healthcare surveys
We love leveraging AI for brainstorming. The simplest prompt you can try:
Suggest 10 open-ended questions for citizen survey about healthcare access.
You always get better results if you give more context. Add details about your audience, their challenges, and your goals for the survey. Here’s an improved prompt:
I'm designing a survey for local citizens aged 18–65 about barriers and experiences in accessing healthcare (primary, emergency, and specialty care). The goal is to find gaps and suggest improvements. Suggest 10 open-ended questions.
Once you have a list of questions, classify them for clarity:
Look at the questions and categorize them. Output categories with the questions under them.
Then, choose the most relevant themes—perhaps "financial barriers" or "appointment availability"—and go deeper:
Generate 10 questions for categories Appointment Availability and Financial Barriers.
This guided process lets you iterate with AI, maximizing the quality and focus of your survey. Don’t forget: you can use Specific’s AI survey generator to streamline the whole experience.
What is a conversational survey?
A conversational survey feels like a real, dynamic exchange. Unlike rigid forms, the survey adapts its questions based on each person’s answers. This increases completion rates, captures richer detail, and puts respondents at ease—especially important in complex or sensitive topics like healthcare access.
Let’s compare how survey creation differs:
Manual Surveys | AI-Generated Surveys (Specific) |
|---|---|
Manually draft every question and answer | Instant generation and smart suggestions |
No automatic follow-ups; limited context | Dynamic, real-time probing for richer insights |
Difficult to analyze varied responses | Instant AI-powered summaries and themes |
One-size-fits-all format | Adaptive, chat-like experience feels natural |
Why use AI for citizen surveys? AI survey generation is faster, smarter, and more flexible. You get better questions and more nuanced responses without the burden of manual creation or analysis. See this step-by-step guide on creating surveys.
Specific builds conversational surveys that make collecting and analyzing healthcare access feedback smooth—for both creators and citizens. Best-in-class user experience and seamless insights are built in.
See this healthcare access survey example now
Try a conversational, AI-powered healthcare access survey that adapts, follows up, and analyzes for you—see how Specific transforms citizen feedback into actionable insights right away.