The aim of this study was to estimate health professional and patient satisfaction and to identify some of the factors that could impinge on health professional satisfaction. A comparative cross-sectional study type survey was carried out at the outpatient setting from healthcare units at the Instituto Mexicano del Seguro Social. Two different questionnaires were employed: one to measure work satisfaction of health professionals (n = 797); and the second, to measure the satisfaction of patients (n = 948) with the quality of medical care received. In total, 402 (50.4 %) workers and 439 (46.3 %) patients were satisfied. The highest and the lowest numbers of satisfied workers were observed in family care units and second-level hospitals, respectively, while the greatest proportion of satisfied patients was found in the second level hospitals. No correlation was found between the number of health professionals and satisfied patients (r = 0.166, p = 0.363). The results of this study have a twofold goal: to illustrate the current status quality of care and to suggest that an effort on periodic measurements of the process of care should be made to improve the quality of care.