Changes in Store as Healthcare Shifts From a Wholesale to Retail Model
The healthcare industry is beginning to evolve from a wholesale to a retail market. Booz Allen Hamilton commissioned Harris Interactive to conduct a research study on the progress of this transformation and the role supply and demand play in this developing consumer-centric marketplace.
The research report “Consumer and Physician Readiness for a Retail Healthcare Market” showed that consumers with greater cost responsibility are becoming more aware of cost and quality differences, but are just beginning to shop around for products and services. Consumers expect there to be competition among providers and suppliers, but in different
ways depending on the product or service offered. For instance, they expect physicians to compete on quality, while health care plans should be competing on price.
According to the study, however, at this point in time consumers lack the information needed to comparison shop. The majority of consumers are not at all or only somewhat satisfied with the available information on healthcare quality or cost. Physicians are also dissatisfied, but more so with cost data than quality information. Complicating this situation, consumers and physicians disagree on the most trusted sources of healthcare information.
“There is a disconnect between the robust information that consumers expect physicians to provide versus what physicians themselves are willing or able to offer.”
The study found that plan design seems to influence consumers’ healthcare decisions, as well as their willingness to spend now in order to prevent future health complications.
More than half of the physicians surveyed believe consumer-directed healthcare is a significant and lasting trend that will affect their practices over the next three to five years, however few believe it will produce better outcomes.
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