Best questions for patient survey about affordability of care

Here are some of the best questions for a patient survey about affordability of care, plus tips for designing meaningful surveys—whether you want to gather feedback or spark deeper conversation. We use Specific to build these in seconds. You can generate your own AI-driven survey without hassle.

10 best open-ended questions for patient survey about affordability of care

Open-ended questions allow patients to elaborate on their experiences. They spark stories and deeper insights—perfect when you don’t want simple yes/no answers, but want to understand nuance:

1. Can you describe a time when cost influenced your decision to seek medical care?

2. What’s the biggest financial challenge you’ve faced when paying for healthcare?

3. How do your healthcare expenses impact your daily life or other important expenses?

4. In what ways do you try to save money when accessing medical care?

5. Have you ever delayed or skipped care because of cost? What happened?

6. How do you feel about the costs of prescription medications you need?

7. Are there specific services or treatments you avoid due to expense?

8. How transparent do you find the pricing and billing from your healthcare providers?

9. What support or resources would help make healthcare more affordable for you?

10. Is there anything else you wish your healthcare provider understood about your experience with affordability?

Open-ended prompts like these are crucial. According to a recent study, a staggering 74% of adults express worry about healthcare costs and 70% are specifically concerned about affordability, which underscores the need for more than checkbox answers if we want real patient perspectives [1].

Best single-select multiple-choice questions for patient survey about affordability of care

Single-select multiple-choice questions are best when you need to quantify an issue or streamline choices. They work well for big-picture metrics or when you want to make participation easy—sometimes patients find it easier to react to simple options before diving deeper. This often helps start the conversation, and you can always ask more in follow-up.

Question: How confident are you in your ability to afford the healthcare services you need?

• Very confident

• Somewhat confident

• Not confident

• Not sure

Question: In the past 12 months, have you skipped or delayed any care due to cost?

• Yes

• No

• Not applicable

Question: What is your biggest concern regarding healthcare costs?

• Doctor visit fees

• Prescription medication costs

• Insurance premiums or deductibles

• Unexpected or hidden charges

• Other

When to follow up with "why?" When someone picks “Not confident” about affording services, we always follow up with “Can you tell us what makes you feel that way?”—because the real reasons usually hide behind the initial answer. These “why” follow-ups illuminate the specific challenges patients face, such as difficulty paying for prescriptions; for context, 22% of patients taking at least one prescription in 2025 reported difficulty affording them [2].

When and why to add the "Other" choice? Always use “Other” when you can’t exhaust every possible answer. Follow-up questions after “Other” uncover unexpected pain points, like surprise billing, that you may not have anticipated or listed as an option.

NPS question: does it fit patient surveys on affordability?

The Net Promoter Score (NPS) question is a simple, proven way to gauge loyalty or satisfaction—commonly phrased as “How likely are you to recommend this provider to friends or family?” It certainly makes sense for patient surveys about affordability, especially if you want a single-number summary. If affordability is hurting loyalty, NPS will uncover the gap. Patients experiencing “financial toxicity”—the stress tied to medical expenses—are often much less likely to recommend their provider or even seek needed care at all, with 25% of patients in 2025 reporting significant financial stress related to healthcare costs [3]. Quick tip: try a ready-made NPS survey with this NPS survey builder for affordability of care.

The power of follow-up questions

Follow-ups are key to conversational, qualitative feedback. They allow us to clarify, deepen, and personalize the conversation in ways a static form never could—see our explainer on automatic AI follow-up questions. With Specific, AI will ask smart follow-ups in real time, mimicking how an expert would probe deeper based on each unique patient’s wording. This means richer context and more actionable data, without the endless back-and-forth over email or phone.

• Patient: “I often struggle to pay for medication.”

• AI follow-up: “What types of medications have been most challenging for you to afford?”

• Patient: “Sometimes I skip doctor appointments.”

• AI follow-up: “Was the main reason financial, or were there other contributing factors?”

How many followups to ask? Two or three well-targeted follow-ups are usually enough. Our system lets you set a maximum and move to the next topic when you have what you need. It’s efficient—never overwhelming for the respondent.

This makes it a conversational survey. The back-and-forth transforms static surveys into natural, chat-like interviews patients actually complete.

AI survey response analysis. Even with all this rich narrative info, modern AI makes it a breeze to analyze. We use GPT-based tools (see how to analyze survey responses) to summarize patterns, themes, and even offer verbatim exports for compliance. You won’t get buried in qualitative data.

These AI-powered follow-ups are a game changer. If you want to see this in action, try to generate your own conversational survey—the difference is real.

How to prompt GPT tools for better survey questions

Prompting ChatGPT or similar models works best when you’re clear and contextual. Here’s how I’d do it—copy, tweak for your situation, and test:

To get basic ideas, use:

Suggest 10 open-ended questions for patient survey about affordability of care.

But the key to better results is context. Always tell GPT who you are, your goals, and anything special about your audience:

I am designing a survey for adults in the United States who have used healthcare services in the past year. My goal is to understand specific challenges around affordability of care—out-of-pocket costs, insurance coverage, and prescription spending. Please suggest 10 open-ended and 5 multiple-choice questions that would surface detailed insights.

Once you have a big list, organize it with a second prompt:

Look at the questions and categorize them. Output categories with the questions under them.

Pick your favorite categories to dive deeper. For example, if you want to go deeper on "prescription costs" and "billing transparency":

Generate 10 questions for categories “prescription costs” and “billing transparency.”

What is a conversational survey?

A conversational survey works like a real conversation—not like a boring multi-page form. The AI asks, listens, and smartly follows up, just as a human researcher would. It’s dynamic: as patients answer, the AI adapts, digging just deep enough to capture critical details but not overdoing it. This natural back-and-forth is why survey completion and honesty is so much higher with this method.

Manual survey creation feels like this: you generate questions one by one, try to guess every edge case, and then hope the static form gets filled out honestly. The problem? Rigid formats, low engagement, and shoddy unstructured feedback. Using an AI survey generator like Specific, you design the first draft by describing your goal, and AI instantly creates expert-level questions. From there, you edit by chatting with the AI—change tone, add logic, and tweak in seconds with our AI survey editor.

Why use AI for patient surveys? First, you’ll create expert-quality questions and conversational logic in minutes. Second, you’ll actually get nuanced, honest responses—because patients are more likely to participate and open up in a friendly chat format, instead of ticking off rigid forms. The combination of AI-generated questions, personalized follow-ups, and instant response analysis unlocks actionable clarity on topics like affordability of care in ways no traditional approach can match. “AI survey example” is no longer a hypothetical—it’s the new norm for patient engagement.

Specific offers the best-in-class conversational experience for both survey creators and respondents. It streamlines every step: creation, deployment, and analysis. If you want step-by-step advice for your first survey, check out this guide on how to create a patient affordability of care survey.

See this affordability of care survey example now

Instantly understand what matters most to real patients—see how an AI conversational survey collects feedback that’s actionable, honest, and in-depth, all while saving you hours.