How PRC Compares to Press Ganey, NRC Health, and Qualtrics
Researching patient experience survey vendors? Here’s an honest look at how PRC stacks up and why healthcare organizations that have worked with the big names often find a different experience here.
You Already Know the Names. Here’s What the Research Shows.
If you’re evaluating patient experience survey vendors, you’ve likely already come across Press Ganey, NRC Health, and Qualtrics. They’re well-known, widely used, and heavily marketed. And for certain organizations, they’re a reasonable fit.
But healthcare leaders including CNOs, CMOs, quality directors, and patient experience teams who have worked with those platforms often tell us the same things:
- Consulting support that feels reactive, not proactive
- Account manager turnover that forces you to re-explain your organization every year
- Platforms built for scale, not for your specific situation
- Reporting that’s robust but requires a data team to interpret
- You’re one of thousands of clients, and it feels that way
If any of that resonates, it’s worth understanding what a different approach looks like.
What Makes PRC Different
1. You Get a Dedicated Consultant, Not a Ticketing System
At PRC, every client has a named consultant who knows their organization, their history, their goals, and their challenges. That consultant is available without being billed by the hour, without being reached through a support portal, and without being replaced every contract cycle.
This isn’t a feature we added. It’s how we’ve operated since 1980. The biggest compliment we consistently hear from clients is:
“You feel like an extension of our team, not just another vendor.”
Press Ganey and NRC Health are large organizations with large client bases. Support quality varies significantly depending on which team you land with and whether your account manager stays in the role. When turnover happens, and it does, you start over.
2. Consistent Response Rates That Actually Move the Needle
Response rates directly impact the reliability of your HCAHPS scores and the decisions you make from them. Research consistently shows that higher response rates correlate with better and more accurate patient experience scores.
PRC clients consistently achieve response rates above the national average. That matters because you can’t improve what you can’t accurately measure.
3. Action Planning Is Built In, Not an Add-On
Collecting data is the easy part. Knowing what to do with it is where most organizations struggle. PRC’s consulting model is designed around turning results into action rather than handing you a report and stepping back.
Your consultant works with you to identify key drivers, develop department-level action plans, present results to leadership teams, and prepare frontline leaders to have meaningful conversations with their teams. This is included. It’s not an upsell.
4. Post-Discharge Outreach Built on Human Connection
PRC’s Emera program personally calls 100% of discharged patients within 24 to 48 hours. Real people, trained for empathy, available in multiple languages, with a structured escalation path for every concern that surfaces.
Press Ganey offers post-discharge communication through automated, AI-enabled outreach designed to eliminate human calls. NRC Health uses IVR technology. Neither connects patients with a real person. Emera does.
5. Benchmarks Built Exclusively for Healthcare
PRC has been exclusively focused on healthcare since day one. We survey hundreds of hospitals across the country, which means our benchmarks reflect what’s actually happening in healthcare rather than data averaged across industries and then filtered down to a healthcare subset.
Qualtrics is a powerful platform built for the enterprise market broadly. It excels at customization and technology integration. But healthcare-specific benchmarking, CAHPS compliance expertise, and the nuance of what drives patient and employee experience in a clinical setting are not where it was built to differentiate.
6. Tenure That Actually Means Something
Most PRC team members have been here for decades, not years. When you work with PRC, you’re working with people who have seen thousands of healthcare organizations across every type of market, every size, and every challenge. That accumulated expertise isn’t something a platform can replicate.
An Honest Side-by-Side
| PRC | Press Ganey | NRC Health | Qualtrics | |
| Dedicated Consultant | Included | Varies by Tier | Varies by Tier | Varies by Tier |
| Healthcare-Exclusive Focus | Since 1980 | Primarily Healthcare | Primarily Healthcare | Multi-Industry |
| CAHPS/HCAHPS-Certified | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Action Planning Support | Included | Varies by Contract | Varies by Contract | Limited |
| Employee Experience Surveys | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Physician Experience Surveys | Yes | Yes | Yes | Limited |
| Post-Discharge Outreach Program | Yes, Human Calls (Emera) | Yes, Automated (No Human Contact) | Yes, IVR (No Human Contact) | No Dedicated Program |
| Community Health/CHNA | Yes | No | No | No |
| Market & Brand Perception | Yes | Limited | Limited | Yes |
| Size/Feel | Mid-Size, Personal | Enterprise, Large | Mid-Large | Enterprise, Large |
Who PRC Is and Is Not the Right Fit For
We’d rather be honest than oversell.
PRC is likely a strong fit if:
- You want a consultant who knows your organization and stays with you
- You’re focused on HCAHPS improvement, CMS star ratings, or value-based purchasing outcomes
- You want action planning support, not just data delivery
- You’re a community hospital, regional health system, or health system of any size where the relationship matters as much as the platform
- You’ve felt like a number at your current vendor
You may want to evaluate other options if:
- Your primary need is a self-serve technology platform with deep EHR integration and minimal human touchpoints
- You’re looking for a vendor to administer a survey and deliver a report, and the action that follows is entirely internal
- Checking the compliance box is the goal, and genuine improvement is secondary
What Clients Who’ve Switched Tell Us
Healthcare organizations that move to PRC from larger vendors consistently mention three things:
1. They finally feel heard.
At large vendors, feedback gets logged. At PRC, it gets acted on. Clients know their consultant’s name, their consultant knows their goals, and when something comes up, someone picks up the phone.
2. The results actually go somewhere.
Survey results that sit in a portal don’t improve patient experience. PRC’s consulting model is built around making sure the data leads to action, department by department and leader by leader.
3. The tenure and expertise are real.
When you bring a challenge to PRC, you’re talking to people who have seen that challenge dozens of times in organizations like yours. That pattern recognition is hard to replicate and hard to put a price on.
Ready to See How It Would Work for Your Organization?
We’re not going to promise you’ll improve your HCAHPS scores by a specific percentage. What we can promise is that you’ll have a partner who treats your results like they’re our results, because in many ways, they are.
If you’re evaluating vendors, we’d welcome a conversation. No pressure, no hard sell. Just an honest look at whether PRC is the right fit for what you’re trying to accomplish.