Four in 10 patients would pay more for convenient care access, including scheduling an appointment sooner and visiting a provider closer to home.
By Sara Heath
More than half of adult patients would be willing to pay more for better quality of care, while a whopping four in 10 would pay more for more convenient care access and provider choice, according to new YouGov data gathered on behalf of AKASA.
The survey of nearly 2,000 patients over age 18 found that patients would be willing to pay higher healthcare costs if the care they received was of better quality or otherwise met their unique needs and preferences.
These findings come as the healthcare industry zeros in on the factors most important to the patient experience. Hospitals and clinics alike are adjusting to a new era of healthcare consumerism, which acknowledges that patients are ponying up for more of their healthcare costs and therefore are seeking out experiences that fit their needs.
Understanding where patients would be willing to spend more may help organizations redesign practice management processes.
Overall, 57 percent of patients said they’d pay more for a higher quality of care, the survey found. That’s an incentive for healthcare organizations embarking on quality improvement initiatives.
But importantly, more than four in 10 patients are also willing to pay more for services not related to clinical quality. Forty-seven percent said they’d pay more to be able to get treatment from the care team of their choice, while 41 percent said they’d pay more to be able to work with the hospital of their choice.
Meanwhile, 41 percent said they’d be willing to pay more to visit a convenient location or one that is in close proximity to them. Another 40 percent of patient respondents said they’d pay extra to schedule an appointment quickly.
These findings may help healthcare organizations make investments in convenient care access. Open access scheduling, online appointment scheduling, and opening up convenient care locations will be key to meeting the demands of healthcare consumers, the survey indicated.
Zooming in, patients largely want to stay 50 miles of their homes to receive high-quality healthcare; 85 percent of patients indicated they’d travel no more than 50 miles to get the best care at the best price.
But when assuming clinical quality is uniform across organizations, patients naturally indicated that the closer the facility, the better.
Around half (51 percent) of patients said they’d be willing to travel between 10 and 20 miles to for healthcare. Thirty-one percent said they’d travel within 21 and 50 miles.
Far fewer patients would travel extraordinary distances to get medical care. Around one in 10 (13 percent) said they’d travel between 51 and 100 miles, while a combined 5 percent said they’d travel up to 400 miles for medical care.
In fairness, travel distance is not an easy patient care access barrier to overcome, either for patients or providers. Opening clinics within 10 miles of every American would be a challenging feat, especially in rural areas where there is little population density.
Instead, healthcare organizations should leverage the tools that can help them and their patients circumvent geography as a care access barrier.
Telehealth, for example, has proven essential to helping folks in rural areas or who otherwise face long travel times to medical care. Direct-to-consumer telehealth can help individuals receive some healthcare from their homes. Meanwhile, other telehealth platforms help connect smaller, rural organizations with larger, well-resourced hospitals via consults.
In 2022, researchers wrote in the Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine that telehealth helped increase appointment completion rates by 20 percent in rural areas. However, more support is needed to help connect older patients, those who are new patients to an organization, and those with complex chronic illness to telehealth.
