Does the Payment Method Affect Patient Satisfaction? An Analytical Study in 10 Hospitals in Central Sulawesi

Indonesia has started reforms in the health system over the past five years, aiming to increase access of all people to health services. At present, there is public concern about quality health services, where the success of hospitals in meeting patient expectations is a major determinant in increasing patient satisfaction and trust. Patient satisfaction is an important measure for the process of evaluating the quality of services to patients in hospitals. However, the evaluation of patient satisfaction based on their payment methods is still very limited. The purpose of this study was to measure differences in hospital service satisfaction based on payment methods in Central Sulawesi. This an analytical observational study with a cross-sectional approach. Samples were taken using purposive sampling technique from 10 hospitals in Center Sulawesi. The samples were 107 respondents for each hospital or 1,070 respondents overall. The highest overall level of patient satisfaction on all elements was experienced by respondents who paid using NHIS (77.50%) while the lowest was felt by respondents who paid with KIS (70.74%). The Kruskal Wallis test results for all elements indicated that there were significant differences in satisfaction levels based on the payment methods in all elements with p-value = 0.000, (p-value <0.05). The results of this study indicated that there were significant differences in satisfaction levels based on the payment methods in all elements of service.