Quality of Care Takes Top Spot with Consumers

If willingness to pay is an indication of what consumers want most, then the recently-released results of a study offers key insights that can help healthcare marketers focus their efforts. 

The AKASA Survey

The online survey was commissioned by AKASA and conducted by YouGov during mid-March of 2022, polling over 2000 Americans. According to the press release, participants were asked: “When you seek out healthcare, are you willing to pay more or less for any of the following factors?” Respondents ranked their priorities in this context as: 

• Quality of care (57%)
• Ability to work with care team of choice (47%)
• Ability to work with hospitals of choice (41%)
• Location proximity or convenience (41%)
• Ability to get an appointment quickly (40%)

Participants were also asked: “Assuming quality is equivalent across all care options, how far would you travel to get the best price for medical care?” 

According to the press release, “The survey found most Americans are willing to travel some for a reasonable price in healthcare but will not go to extraordinary lengths to access the best price: 82% of Americans prefer to stay within 50 miles when seeking out care at the best price.”

“The findings can help healthcare leaders prioritize what to focus on when thinking about their bottom lines through the lens of what patients are willing to pay for and aligning it with improving the patient experience,” said Amy Raymond, VP of revenue cycle operations at AKASA in a statement. 

Quality of Care and Healthcare Marketers

It can be easy to assume that factors which impact quality of care largely rest with clinicians. While members of the clinical staff certainly play a key role in this context, nonclinical staff members in various capacities—including healthcare marketers—can have a big impact, too. 

This dynamic is described in a 2019 post from Mercury® Healthcare—a technology and data analytics company that was acquired by WebMD in June of 2022. 

“While quality of care is dictated largely by the training, staffing, and ongoing development of competent physicians and providers, healthcare marketers can have a substantial impact,” the post says. “…quality of care is not limited to the interactions that take place directly between physician and patient: It begins with the very first communications a consumer has with the health system, whether they’re scheduling an appointment or simply filling out a form online.” 

Underscoring the link between effective patient engagement and quality of care, the company says the utilization of health analytics insights can help to “increase engagement and improve overall quality of care.”

Mercury Healthcare says using insights generated through health analytics supports the use of propensity modeling to help healthcare marketers:

• Identify “specific demographic subsets with a healthcare CRM”
• Create “unique personas and targeted precision marketing campaigns to both consumers and existing patients” 
• Deploy “personalized, targeted messaging that empowers consumers to seek out the care they need and make informed decisions throughout their healthcare journey”

“Armed with this information, healthcare organizations can build, launch, and manage multi-channel campaigns that target at-risk demographics, consumers with specific conditions, and even community-wide population health initiatives,” the company says. “All of this helps proactively guide patients towards the right type of care – at exactly the right time.”

Of course, HIPAA-compliance is always a priority—which is why it’s important to ensure that healthcare CRM (customer relationship management) offerings align accordingly. 

Contact us today to find out how we can help level up your healthcare marketing strategy.