Payer Rankings Don't Tell Providers' Stories

"We've redesigned our website to make it easier. [It] takes fewer steps to find what they're looking for. We heard from the physician community that our website is much improved," says Vayer.

What may be contributing to the mediocre scores isn't so much the antagonistic relationship between providers and payers, but the complicated nature of healthcare today. Vayer concedes "healthcare professionals are asked to do a lot of things," and believes that may be why payers are not receiving high scores.

Mandolesi goes further, saying with so many different coverage decisions and policy guidelines, providers can't help but be confused and frustrated.

"It's an interesting dynamic we live in right now in healthcare," says Mandolesi. "There [are] so many moving pieces and parts and I think the problem is that physicians just want to be able to provide services, and that when a patient walks in with an ID card they're covered under that policy, and they'll get reimbursed and everyone's happy."

For now, it seems the conclusion on both sides is to meet in the middle, which is where most of the satisfactions scores are, too.