Another interesting study came out this month that demonstrates healthcare consumers are beginning to act more and more like true retail customers. The study by the management consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton found that many health-care consumers are shopping for products and services, and expecting competition among providers and suppliers–but they still lack the information they need to make informed choices in critical areas.
They expect doctors to provide information on cost and quality, but inevitably wind up empty handed. Booz Allen commissioned a Harris Interactive poll of almost 3,000 consumers and 600 physicians in the U.S. to examine how the transition to a retail market in health-care is impacting decision-making and influencing behavior. Consumers enrolled in traditional health plans and in high deductible health plans were surveyed. It found, not surprisingly, that consumers with high deductible health plans (HDHPs) were much more interested in the costs of healthcare: Twenty percent of consumers with HDHPs said that they have asked their primary care doctor upfront about the price of services, compared with just 13 percent of individuals in traditional health plans.
Nearly half of all the consumers surveyed expected primary care and specialist physicians to compete on quality while only 10 to 16 percent expected them to compete on service. When it came to health information, consumers looked to physicians, family, friends, and independent sources like Consumer Reports as trusted sources. They considered health plans among the least trustworthy, putting them in the same league as employers, the government, and pharmaceutical companies.
The consumers surveyed also wanted physicians to provide more cost and quality information than the doctors are willing to offer. While ninety percent of consumers with greater cost responsibility said they would find data on expected out-of-pocket costs for a medical product or service useful, just 19 percent of physicians surveyed currently make information on their safety or medical error rate for specific treatments available, and just 16 percent plan to do so in the next two to three years. (Few doctors, it seems, know that much of this data is available to the public free of charge from Vimo.com.)
“Despite the potential impact of consumer-directed health-care on their practices, many physicians do not appear to see their future role or behavior changing dramatically,” said Booz Allen Vice President Rick Edmunds in a press release. "There is a gap between consumer demands and what many providers are preparing to deliver – while some consumers are beginning to act like true retail buyers and shop for value, many physicians are not responding to consumer demands for additional information, more competition, and an enhanced advisory role."
