Best questions for patient survey about transportation barriers

Here are some of the best questions for a patient survey about transportation barriers, plus tips on how to design them for rich feedback. You can build a patient survey on transportation barriers in seconds with Specific, and start collecting truly meaningful insights right away.

Best open-ended questions for patient survey about transportation barriers

Open-ended questions let patients describe their experiences in their own words—which often surfaces challenges and stories you’d never uncover with lists. These are essential when you want true context, not just numbers. Especially for complex issues like transportation access, they prompt detailed accounts leading to better understanding and action.

Consider that more than 1 in 5 U.S. adults without access to a vehicle or good public transit skipped a medical appointment in the past year. Getting to the “why” behind these stats is where open-ended questions shine. [1]

1. Can you describe any recent challenges you’ve faced when traveling to medical appointments?

2. What are the main reasons you find it difficult to arrange transportation for healthcare visits?

3. How do transportation issues impact your ability to get the care you need?

4. What changes in transportation options would make it easier for you to access healthcare?

5. Have transportation problems ever caused you to delay or skip medical care? Please share the details.

6. How do you currently solve transportation challenges when they come up?

7. Are there specific types of appointments or times of day when transportation is especially difficult for you?

8. What support or resources would help you overcome transportation barriers?

9. If you could improve one thing about your transportation experience around healthcare, what would it be?

10. Can you share a positive experience you’ve had with transportation to healthcare, and what made it work?

Best single-select multiple-choice questions for patient survey about transportation barriers

Multiple-choice (single-select) questions are ideal when you need quantifiable data or want to gently start a conversation. Sometimes it’s much easier for patients to pick an option than to craft a full reply, especially about sensitive or complicated topics. You can use these as a warm-up before deeper questions or to get a pulse on the most common issues.

Question: What is your primary mode of transportation to medical appointments?

• Personal vehicle

• Public transit

• Rideshare or taxi

• Family or friend

• Walking

• Other

Question: In the past 12 months, how many times have you missed a medical appointment due to transportation issues?

• None

• 1–2 times

• 3–5 times

• More than 5 times

Question: What is the biggest transportation barrier you face for healthcare appointments?

• Lack of reliable transit

• High transportation costs

• Distance to clinic

• Limited mobility or physical limitations

• Other

When to follow up with "why?" If someone selects an answer like “Limited mobility or physical limitations,” following up with “Can you share a bit more about how this affects your travel to appointments?” will help you dig deeper. This clarifies what’s behind a choice and ensures you’re not missing important context that a checkbox can’t reveal.

When and why to add the "Other" choice? Always add an “Other” option for barriers or modes you didn’t anticipate. If someone selects this, a follow-up free-text prompt can reveal issues you hadn’t considered—which sometimes turn out to be widespread.

NPS-style question for patient survey about transportation barriers

The Net Promoter Score (NPS) isn’t just for customer loyalty—it helps benchmark relief or frustration with healthcare access, too. Here, it gauges how likely patients are to recommend your clinic or service to others, considering their transportation experience. This offers a crisp metric to track, especially as interventions are made. You can generate an NPS survey about transportation barriers in a click.

The power of follow-up questions

Follow-up questions can open up a conversation, transforming a survey from a one-way form into a real dialogue. Specific’s automatic follow-up AI tailors these probes in real time—asking just the right “what else?” or “could you clarify?” to pull out details that matter. We’ve written more on how automated follow-ups work in practice, but here’s the gist: you get richer stories, fewer dead ends, and learn what you’re actually missing.

• Patient: “Sometimes it takes too long to get to my doctor.”

• AI follow-up: “Can you describe what makes your travel time long? For example, is it waiting for a ride, traffic, or something else?”

How many followups to ask? In our experience, 2–3 tailored follow-up questions are usually enough to get useful detail, but it’s smart to let respondents move on when they’ve explained themselves. Specific lets you configure this, so the conversation ends naturally when enough context is gathered.

This makes it a conversational survey—you’re no longer just collecting answers, but understanding the story behind each response.

Easy AI-powered analysis. Even with lots of open-ended answers, using AI makes analysis simple and actionable. See more on how to analyze patient survey responses about transportation barriers using AI.

Try generating a survey and see how much context you can uncover just by letting follow-ups do their thing—it’s a new and much more human way to gather insights.

How to compose a prompt for AI or GPT to generate great questions

If you want AI to help brainstorm the perfect survey questions, don’t just ask vaguely. Be explicit about your audience, context, and goals. For example, try:

Suggest 10 open-ended questions for patient survey about transportation barriers.

You’ll get much higher quality results if you also describe who your patients are, what you’re hoping to learn, and your care environment. For example:

We serve patients at a suburban health center, many rely on public transportation or family for rides. Our goal is to reduce missed appointments and improve health access. Generate 10 open-ended questions that will help us understand patient transportation barriers in detail.

Next, it’s smart to let AI help cluster questions by theme. Try:

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

From the list of categories (maybe “cost,” “mobility,” or “public transit”), pick those most vital for your project. Then drill down further:

Generate 10 questions for the categories cost and public transit access.

What is a conversational survey

A conversational survey feels like a chat, not an interrogation—which helps even reluctant respondents open up. Instead of overwhelming people with big blocks of questions, you get a natural back-and-forth, with smart AI follow-ups steering the talk. That means less survey fatigue and more honest, contextual feedback.

The difference with an AI survey builder or conversational survey tool like Specific is night and day compared to rigid, form-based tools. Here’s a quick comparison:

Why use AI for patient surveys? AI-powered surveys unlock more nuanced understanding—especially around sensitive topics like transportation barriers—because the tool actively clarifies, probes, and adapts in real time. You can see an AI survey example for patient transportation barriers right here and experience the conversational difference.

Specific offers an outstanding user experience, making feedback easy for both survey creators and respondents. If you want to go further, check out our guide on how to create a patient survey about transportation barriers for even more best practices.

See this transportation barriers survey example now

Unlock new patient insights about transportation barriers in minutes by creating your own survey—complete with smart follow-ups, actionable AI analysis, and a conversational experience your patients will actually want to finish.