Survey data shows patients want a consumer healthcare experience that simplifies care access and patient billing.
Healthcare is next to impossible to access and engage with, dissuading nearly 50 percent of from care access whatsoever, according to a new Harris Poll commissioned by Change Healthcare.
More than two-thirds of patients polled said every step of the healthcare access process is a chore, and nearly every respondent said they want it to be equally simple to shop for healthcare as it is other consumer goods and services.
The survey of 1,945 patients with various forms of health payer coverage took two approaches, the first using a 200-point Likert scale ranking the difficulty of certain healthcare tasks. A rating of one represented an effortless healthcare process and a score of 200 represented the hardest effort. Any rating over 100 was deemed as “difficult.”
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Across 29 healthcare tasks encompassing finding, accessing, and paying for healthcare, the highest score given was a 149. The average score across all healthcare tasks was 177.
Notably, respondents did not rate one healthcare task at a one, or as “effortless.”
That said, the processes to find care were by far deemed the easiest. Uninsured patients scored this area a 116, which is within the difficult range. However, respondents enrolled in any other type of health plan rated this category under 100, or relatively less difficult. The average score for finding care was 86.
Meanwhile, accessing and paying for care were notably difficult, with the lowest rankings in these categories indicating an easier process still came in over 100. Medicaid enrollees were more likely to find these processes easy compared to patients with other health plans, and still Medicaid members scored access a 119 and payment a 116. The average scores for accessing and paying for healthcare were 133 and 132.
“The message from consumers is clear: They want health plans and providers to end the fragmentation, simplify the experience, and deliver a fully connected encounter that makes healthcare as seamless as any other online endeavor—whether that’s shopping for goods, booking a trip, or paying bills,” a report of the survey findings said.
“The business imperative for healthcare stakeholders is also clear: Payers and providers that streamline healthcare to meet patients’ and members’ expectations will gain a competitive advantage in the marketplace.”
Next, through a series of multiple choice survey responses, the researchers found a specific patient desire for a more consumer-friendly healthcare experience, one that is fundamentally supported by technology.
Patient respondents demanded a shoppable healthcare experience that reflected e-commerce strategies leveraged in other consumer sectors. Eighty-one percent of patients said they want it to be as easy to shop for healthcare as it is other goods and services. Seventy-six percent said they want a central place to shop for healthcare, and 67 percent said they want that healthcare shopping to happen entirely online.
Patients are hungering for an online healthcare delivery experience, too, and said the COVID-19 pandemic has opened the doors for this. Eighty-one percent agreed COVID-19 will change healthcare fundamentally, specifically by speeding up the adoption of patient engagement technology.
Eight in ten respondents said telehealth has become an “indispensable” part of healthcare access, and 65 percent said they plan to use telehealth more once the pandemic ends. Seventy-eight percent said COVID-19 demonstrated just how badly the nation needed telehealth solutions at scale.
Patients also want to see healthcare simplify care access, management, and payment.
Sixty-two percent said they felt as though the healthcare industry was intentionally designed to be confusing. Two-thirds said they felt like a “general contractor” for their own medical care because care management proved so complex, while 56 percent said it was difficult to coordinate care across all of their providers.
Meanwhile, 61 percent said billing was too complex, proving more complicated than a mortgage payment, they said.
By and large, the cost of care has remained elusive. Fifty-three percent of respondents have avoided care access because they did not know how much it would cost, six in ten have gone to a medical appointment not knowing if they could afford it, and 68 percent have been unaware of the cost of a service until months later.
But it shouldn’t be this way, patients said. Patients want accurate price estimates from their payers and price transparency from their providers. Eighty-five percent said comparing healthcare prices should be as easy as price comparison for other consumer products and services.
What’s more, patients said explanation of benefits documents and provider billing remain unclear. Seventy-one percent said they wanted their health plan to communicate using modern technologies, and 68 percent said the same about their clinicians.
Although this polling was conducted in May, it aligns with pre-COVID sentiment about patient experience and consumerism in healthcare. As the patient takes on the role of healthcare consumer, the industry may respond in kind with more consumer-facing digital technologies.
“The majority of consumers said their healthcare experience is a struggle that’s taxing and burdensome, as illustrated through the difficulty they expressed at every phase of finding, accessing, and paying for care,” Abbey Lunney, director at The Harris Poll, said in a statement.
“In an e-commerce world, consumers want the experience of shopping for healthcare to be simple and streamlined. And this has never been more important, as digital healthcare reaches a tipping point amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Source: Patient Engagementhit
