Wonder

Consumers' Expectations Regarding Healthcare Experience

Delivered September 9, 2019. Contributor: Sameen B.

Goals

To understand the expectations of US consumers regarding their healthcare experience by identifying the most desired elements of healthcare experience (with providers, insurers, etc.) in the form of five or more examples of elevated consumer expectations in healthcare to help inform a go-to-market strategy.
 Recent surveys and market research about healthcare experiences with providers or insurers and case studies about fast-growing healthcare companies and how they are succeeding in elevating consumer experience will be particularly helpful. 

Early Findings

 NRC Health published the “2019 Healthcare Consumer Trends Report,” with over one million insights and responses from households as well as healthcare leaders across the United States.
The report indicates that with the evolution of the healthcare consumers, they expect the healthcare systems to evolve as well. 
Consumers today want more than excellent care. They prefer healthcare conforming to their elevated expectations that is delivered with more convenience, ease, and choice. In fact, 80% of consumers said that they would switch providers for factors related to convenience alone. 
For 51.3% of healthcare consumers in the US, convenient and easy access to a healthcare provider is the primary factor in their decision-making process. Convenience outranked factors such as insurance coverage (46.4%), interpersonal conduct of doctors and nurses (44.2%), brand reputation (39.8%), and quality of care (34.6%) in NRC Health's study. 
Another significantly important factor related to convenience is the availability of telehealth services. As much as 60% of employers provide some form of digital healthcare appointments to their employees. According to the CEO of Kaiser Permanente, an American healthcare company, in 2016, over 50% of their patient visits were conducted via telehealth platform.  
The importance of the convenience factor has been reiterated in other surveys and studies as well. According to Deloitte 2018 Health Care Consumer Survey, 50% of the surveyed healthcare consumers across the US in 2018 indicated that being a part of their health plan’s network is the most important factor in choosing a provider followed by a convenient location (43%), reputation (39%), bedside manners (34%), convenient hours (32%), and out-of-pocket costs (31%). 
 Use of technology for services such as scheduling appointments, making payments, getting lab results, and for telemedicine/virtual visits was also important for a total of 17% consumers. 
According to a survey of 1,000 healthcare consumers aged 18 to 65 conducted by Kyruus and Wakefield Research, insurance acceptance is the most important factor in selecting a provider for 3 out of 4 (75%) respondents. Among other factors, convenience was important for millennials as 79% look for an earlier appointment and 40% prefer booking appointments online. 
The Consumerization of Healthcare report by Econsultancy and Adobe uncovers the extent to which digital services impact consumers’ expectations of their healthcare providers. Opinions from 2,600 American healthcare consumers reveal that they expect a swift, convenient, and digital customer experience and are willing to switch providers for faster appointments and availability of online booking, and video consultations. 
 62% of the surveyed consumers said that they expect online appointment booking from their providers while for 44%, this was a “very important” factor. Similarly, 84% respondents wanted to be able to exchange secure messages with their provider. 

In addition to this public search, we scanned our proprietary research database of over 1 million sources and were unable to find any specific research reports that address your goals. 

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