The American Association of Neurological Surgeons (AANS) made progress in the crucial and ongoing assessment of member needs by conducting a comprehensive opinion survey of AANS members in the fall of 2002.
The 2002 AANS Member Needs Survey evaluated members’ opinions of current AANS benefits and services and the AANS Executive Office operations, as well as future needs. Overall, the survey found that most respondents were quite satisfied with the benefits they were receiving as AANS members and that membership dues were commensurate with the services they were receiving. The survey also identified several areas that could be reviewed and refocused to match members’ priorities.
Survey results were distributed to AANS leadership, including all AANS committee chairs, to ensure integration of the results in all aspects of AANS operation and planning. The survey results also underlie the very premise of the recently released AANS Strategic Plan, which is simply that members’ needs are what drives the AANS as the professional association for neurosurgeons.
Core Findings
Members responded consistently across several categories including: age; years in practice; type of practice (e.g. private); practice setting (e.g. large group); and practice region.
However, responses showed that practice setting did affect the percentage of time members spent in subspecialty areas. For example, neurosurgeons working in large, multispecialty practices said they spent more time working in the cerebrovascular, endovascular and movement disorders areas compared to those working in other practice settings.
Current Benefits
The survey asked members to rate the importance of AANS products, services and benefits. It also asked members how satisfied they were with those services.
Legislative issues, particularly obtaining medical liability reform, reigned as the most important membership benefits. Other legislative priorities included:
- maximizing Medicare and other physician reimbursement
- implementing Medicare reform and coding changes in Current Procedural Terminology;
- representing neurosurgery with regard to the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (EMTALA) regulations and improving trauma systems; and
- reducing regulatory oversight of neurosurgeons.
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Members rated legislative advocacy efforts as very important, but rated their satisfaction with progress on those issues relatively lower. For news on how the AANS and the Washington Committee are working on behalf of members on all of these legislative issues, visit www.aans.org/legislative/aans/medical.asp.
Member services such as the Journal of Neurosurgery, continuing medical education transcripts and tracking of credits, and the AANS Membership Directory, were highly rated in both importance and satisfaction. AANS annual meeting activities and practice management courses such as Managing Coding and Reimbursement Challenges in Neurosurgery also rated very highly in both categories. In general, respondents said they were very satisfied with most of the services that were most important to them.
Usefulness of the AANS Bulletin
Survey respondents said that the AANS Bulletin was an important benefit and that they were very satisfied with it. Several specific sections that recur in every issue were rated highly, such as the Coding Corner column and the President’s Message, as well as several departments including the Calendar of Neurosurgical Events, Newsline (From the Hill and Neuro News), and News.org (news items from AANS and other organizations). Bulletin features and cover stories also were rated highly.
A comprehensive online Bulletin readership survey is scheduled for this winter, and members are encouraged to participate in it to ensure that this member publication continues to meet their needs.
Future Membership in AANS
On a scale in which a “5” rating indicates “most likely to renew membership in AANS,” 97 percent of respondents said that they would renew their membership in the next year. The mean response was 4.64. Nearly as many respondents indicated that they would renew their membership in the next two years.
When asked to rate their agreement with the statement “AANS dues are appropriate for services provided,” 90 percent of those surveyed responded affirmatively. The mean response was 3.61.
Self-Education Preferences
Survey respondents indicated that physically attending a course is still their preferred method of education. Of the self-education options available from AANS, such as DVDs or videos, respondents preferred print publications to DVDs/videos or CDs, though less significantly than has been reported in past surveys. Respondents expressed moderate interest in participating in online educational courses, but this option was the least preferred.
Interaction With the AANS Executive Office
Members reported high satisfaction with their interaction with staff at the AANS Executive Office in Rolling Meadows, Ill. The majority of respondents indicated that they contacted the office between one and five times per year. Just over 43 percent had not contacted the Executive Office at all in the preceding year.
A variety of types of interactions were evaluated. Members were most satisfied with online registration for AANS courses and meetings (with a mean of 4.2 on a five-point scale), and with the accuracy of staff response to member inquiries (with a mean of 4.02). Other evaluated interactions and their mean responses included accuracy of order fulfillment (3.97), timeliness of staff response to inquiries (3.96) and online abstract submission (3.92).
Future Needs
AANS asked members to indicate the importance of potential activities, services or programs that could be offered by the AANS in the future. Again, legislative issues topped the list, with “obtaining medical liability reform” at the summit. Implementing Medicare reform (that is, fundamental structural changes to the current Medicare program), securing beneficial coding changes in Current Procedural Terminology, and maximizing Medicare and other physician reimbursement all rated similarly in terms of importance to members.
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Member Demographics
The majority of respondents were in private practice (52 percent) and in small neurosurgical groups of two to five members (30 percent). Thirty-five percent were between 46 and 55 years old; 28 percent were between 56 and 65, and 26 percent were between 35 and 45. Thirty-four percent of respondents were in practice for 10 to 19 years, with the next largest cluster, 28 percent, in practice 20 to 29 years. The majority of respondents, 60 percent, said that their primary subspecialty was spine, followed by 25 percent who said it was pediatric.
Complete survey demographics are available on the AANS Web site at www.aans.org/membership/2002_demographics.pdf.
Kathleen T. Craig is AANS director of marketing.