Best questions for patient survey about bedside manner

Here are some of the best questions for a patient survey about bedside manner, along with key tips for crafting them. If you’re looking to build a patient survey fast, Specific can help you generate a personalized and insightful survey in seconds.

Best open-ended questions for patient survey about bedside manner

Open-ended questions help you dig deeper and really understand patient feelings and experiences. They’re best when you want genuine, detailed feedback—instead of just yes or no answers. In healthcare, this is how you surface the stories and perspectives that quantitative data would miss.

Here are 10 open-ended questions to ask patients about bedside manner:

1. How would you describe your overall experience with the provider’s bedside manner during your recent visit?

2. Can you give a specific example when you felt particularly comfortable or uncomfortable with your provider?

3. In what ways did the provider make you feel heard and understood?

4. If you could change anything about the provider’s bedside manner, what would it be?

5. How did your provider’s attitude impact your trust and confidence in your care?

6. What, if anything, did your provider do to make you feel at ease during the appointment?

7. Were there moments where you wished the provider had communicated differently? Please describe.

8. How did the provider’s approach to explaining your condition or treatment plan affect your understanding?

9. How did you feel about the level of compassion and attention you received?

10. What advice would you give this provider to improve their interactions with patients?

Open-ended questions like these are especially powerful: a study of patient reviews found that 74.92% of positive feedback mentioned bedside manner as a key factor, and nearly half of negative reviews cited it as well.[1] This level of detail can drive actionable improvements and enhance the patient experience.

Best single-select multiple-choice questions for patient survey about bedside manner

Single-select multiple-choice questions work well when you need structured data you can count and compare—or when you want to gently guide patients into the conversation. Sometimes, offering a set of choices makes it less intimidating for patients to start sharing feedback, and you can always expand with open-ended follow-ups.

Question: How would you rate your provider's bedside manner during your last visit?

• Excellent

• Good

• Average

• Poor

Question: Which aspect of the provider’s bedside manner made the biggest positive impact on your visit?

• Listening attentively

• Showing empathy

• Providing clear explanations

• Respecting my concerns

• Other

Question: Did you feel comfortable discussing your health concerns with your provider?

• Yes, completely comfortable

• Somewhat comfortable

• Not very comfortable

• No, not comfortable at all

When to follow up with "why?" Always follow up with “why?” when a response stands out or when you want to surface more specifics. For example, if a patient selects "Not very comfortable," a follow-up like, “Can you share what made you feel that way?” unpacks context you’d never get from a checkbox alone. These deeper dives are essential—one study found that 43.1% of patient complaints stem from perceived physician indifference and poor bedside manner, outpacing even medical competence concerns.[2]

When and why to add the "Other" choice? Include an “Other” option any time you suspect your choices may not cover every experience. If a patient selects “Other,” a follow-up can capture perspectives you never considered, leading to unexpected insights and better patient care.

NPS questions for patient survey about bedside manner

Net Promoter Score (NPS) is widely used to measure loyalty and satisfaction by asking how likely a patient is to recommend their provider. For bedside manner, it’s especially relevant: NPS captures both the emotional and interpersonal aspects of care, which matter deeply to patients. Given that over half of patients value compassion, comfort, and personality—in addition to medical skill,[3] a bedside manner NPS metric can help you track trust and word-of-mouth over time.

To see how this works, you can quickly try an NPS survey for patient bedside manner—it’s automatically set up with best practices for healthcare feedback.

The power of follow-up questions

If you want to capture both the “what” and the “why” behind patient responses, follow-up questions are where the real value lives. We're seeing strong demand for automated follow-up questions—they make every patient conversation more meaningful and context-rich, without extra manual effort.

• Patient: The doctor was a bit rushed.

• AI follow-up: Could you share more about how the doctor’s pace affected your experience or understanding?

Without the follow-up, you’re left with ambiguity. With it, you get to the root: Did the rush impact trust, clarity, comfort, or something else?

How many followups to ask? Usually, 2–3 targeted follow-ups are enough—just enough to explore the topic without exhausting the respondent. With Specific, you can set the maximum number and let respondents skip once you have the key information.

This makes it a conversational survey: The flow feels like a real, empathic conversation, not a static form. Respondents can naturally explain, clarify, and elaborate—creating genuine dialogue.

Easy AI-driven analysis: Even a long thread of open-ended answers is easily summarized and categorized using AI. AI survey response analysis makes qualitative feedback as actionable as quantitative.

Automatic follow-up questions are a new approach—try generating a patient survey yourself to experience how intuitive and revealing these AI-powered interviews can be.

How to prompt ChatGPT (or other GPTs) to generate patient survey questions

If you want to create powerful patient survey questions about bedside manner using AI, the prompt you give makes all the difference. Start simple:

Suggest 10 open-ended questions for patient survey about bedside manner.

But for best results, add more context about your practice, patient demographics, goals, or the provider’s specialty. For example:

We are a family medicine clinic wanting to improve trust and satisfaction among adult patients. Suggest 10 open-ended questions for a patient survey focused on bedside manner, with an emphasis on communication and empathy.

Once you have a list, use AI to sort and group them:

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

Finally, dig deeper into the categories that matter most. For example, if “communication clarity” and “compassion” are key, you can prompt:

Generate 10 questions for categories ‘communication clarity’ and ‘compassion’ about provider bedside manner.

What is a conversational survey?

A conversational survey is a new approach to feedback—powered by AI—that feels like a real chat, not a rigid form. Patients answer in their own words and the system asks smart, friendly follow-up questions based on their replies. Traditional survey tools rely on static questions, which often miss the “why” behind simple ratings.

Why use AI for patient surveys? AI-driven surveys adapt to the respondent, ask smarter questions, and reveal deeper truths. With tools like Specific’s AI survey generator, you create your entire survey by chatting with the AI. It’s not only faster, but it consistently results in more complete, actionable data. Feedback proves this: patients are far more likely to engage in a conversational survey, especially on mobile.

AI survey example workflows let you run conversational surveys in moments, analyze responses instantly, and uncover trends that matter. If you want a quick walk-through, check out this guide to creating patient surveys about bedside manner.

Specific stands out for seamless conversational survey experiences—patients enjoy giving feedback, and teams get richer insights with less friction.

See this bedside manner survey example now

Build a thoughtful patient bedside manner survey that uncovers actionable insight in minutes. Experience how conversational surveys and automated follow-ups transform the quality and depth of healthcare feedback—your patients will feel heard, and you’ll get the data you need to make a real difference.