UnitedHealth Customers Speak With their Feet, and it’s Time for Everyone to Listen by Miriam Bookey

This week’s sobering news from the UnitedHealth Group  serves as a wake-up call to anyone in healthcare services. For better or worse, a consumer-driven health economy has put individual consumers in the driver’s seat when it comes to how, when and with whom they spend their healthcare dollars. They will leave in the hundreds of thousands if they’re not satisfied (315,000 from UnitedHealth, to be exact).

It’s clear that service providers are no longer working with passive ‘patients’ who ‘receive care.’ Instead, the patients are compelled to be active consumers, responsible for investigating their personal healthcare options, arranging their own care as well as that of children and aging parents, understanding what is or isn’t covered by health plans, utilizing HSAs, selecting responsive and responsible service providers, and taking the initiative to follow up with doctors and health plans after appointments.  It’s a big, complicated and thankless job. And it’s a world in which patients can and will leave their insurers and select care providers based on service, not on health plan.

So how can doctors eclipse the insurer in customer satisfaction? A recent survey conducted by the Chicago-based research firm Synovate sheds some light on what patients want. Pollsters asked 1,000 American consumers to identify factors (other than more time with the doctor) that would help them select a physician and improve satisfaction with their next doctor’s appointment.

The common thread in responses:  We want a customer relationship with the doctor’s practice before and after an appointment – not just while the doctor is “in.”

· Before an appointment we want a fast, convenient way to learn more about our doctor. 

·  We want a “menu” of a doctor’s standard medical services, clinical expertise, their care philosophy, and the types of insurance accepted.

· We want to seamlessly arrange an appointment over the Internet rather than interrupt our day to make telephone calls and wait on hold.

· Once an appointment is scheduled, we want the ability to fill out pre-appointment paperwork in the comfort of our home or office.

· Afterward, we want an easy way to discuss results and treatment and make follow-up appointments.

Bottom line:  We want convenience – not as the doctor’s office or the insurer defines it, but as we do.

What does all this mean for physicians and practice groups and current customer-focused initiatives?

For one, patients want to be treated a lot more like customers and a lot less like patients outside the examination room.  The next generation of Internet-enabled healthcare consumers will demand the same level of convenience and transparency they expect from other service businesses.

That means providers in the health industry will need to adopt the kinds of technologies that will make everyday healthcare transactions easier.  Doctors have done a great job implementing technology in the examination room, but the progress has been too slow in the living room where consumers with laptops and PDAs use the Internet to manage their daily informational and business needs.

Consumers recognize the complexity of the American healthcare system and appreciate the challenges of implementing systemic change.  But also, they eagerly await the implementation of a technology-enabled e-healthcare marketplace and the dawn of the day when it will be as easy to use technology to do business with their doctor as it is to go online and order a pizza. Being a great physician will always be the defining factor.  In the future, however, healthcare customers will attach greater loyalty to those physicians and groups who make it easiest for them to transact medical business and more actively and effectively participate in healthcare decisions. When customers can so easily walk away from a health plan that doesn’t serve their needs, who is to say they won’t just as easily walk away from the physician’s practice that doesn’t provide the conveniences they crave?

Miriam Bookey

Miriam Bookey heads editorial and communications for Xoova, (pronounced ZU-vah) an online medical services marketplace. Patients use Xoova for free to find local doctors, to learn what to expect in advance of a care encounter, and to schedule appointments. Doctors use Xoova for free to manage their presence on the Internet, to share their philosophy of care, and to offer patients the convenience of online scheduling. For full survey results, email miriam@xoova.com.

Comments

[Jay]

Miriam, Matthew,

i ran into some info for Phreesia http://www.phreesia.com. it sounds like a really cool offering.

i think we should have more such initiatives.

what do you guys think about Phreesia?

Regards,
Jay

[Miriam Bookey]

Yes...it's a great start. Patient check-in is notoriously inefficient, impersonal, and (what with crowded waiting rooms and your couchmate peering over your shoulder) none too confidential. How refreshing it would be to have the Phreesia option or, alternatively, all those forms to fill out in the privacy of your home!

And did you happen to see the November 2007 poll from WSJ/Harris Interactive? Buried in the data about EMRs is the fact that a full 77% of patients want the ability to book appointments online.

[Matthew Holt]

Yup, we know all about Phreesia. In fact I wrote about tehm when they were 2 guys in an apartment less than 2 years ago. They'll likely be at the Health 2.0 in March.