Want Patients To Follow Medical Advice? Satisfy Them First

October 26, 2012 2 Comments

In our recent consumer benchmark study, we asked a number of questions about patient experience. It turns out that 79% of recent patients trust health advice from doctors, but only one-third will follow advice from health plans and pharmaceutical companies.

But that’s not the total story…

We also asked patients how satisfied they were with interactions during their recent medical visits. When we examine their likelihood to follow medical advice it turns out that there’s a large gap between satisfied and dissatisfied consumers. As it turns out, about half of consumers that are satisfied with their recent interactions with pharma companies and health plans are likely to follow medical advice from those firms.

This is in’t particularly good news for health plans, since  they were the lowest scoring companies in the 2012 Temkin Experience Ratings. But it is another reason why customer experience is critical for health plans. If those firms want to improve their economics by having members make more healthy decisions, then they are more likely to be successful and influence consumers if they improve how they treat them.

The bottom line: You need to earn the right to offer health advice

Filed under Customer experience

About Bruce Temkin, CCXP
I'm an experience (XM) management catalyst; helping organizations improve results by engaging the hearts and minds of their employees, customers, and partners. I enjoy researching and speaking about these topics. I lead the Qualtrics XM Institute, which is the world's best job. We're igniting a global community of XM Professionals who are inspired and empowered to radically improve the human experience. To achieve this goal, my team focuses on thought leadership, training, and community building. My work is driven by a set of fundamental beliefs: 1) Everything starts and ends with human beings, so you need to understand how people think, feel, and behave; 2) XM is a discipline that needs to be woven throughout an organization's entire operating fabric; and 3) Building the XM discipline requires a combination of culture, competency, and technology.

2 Responses to Want Patients To Follow Medical Advice? Satisfy Them First

  1. Badri says:
    October 29, 2012 at 8:50 am

    I am surprised to know of the feedback from patients and their dissatisfaction with the care-givers in US. I was under the impression that given the fewer number of patients, availability of automation and the legal framework, patients would have a high quality experience. Ultimately, all these factors notwithstanding the only thing that can make a difference to the patients is genuine care by the physicians.

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  2. Karl Sharicz says:
    October 29, 2012 at 2:36 pm

    I can see this the validity of this research from a personal experience. A surgical center caused me to not follow the post op advice 100 percent. Part of it was due to my own preference but the other was due to an unresponsive practitioner as well as a post op follow up call claimed to be focused on the patients post-surgery comfort but turned out to be a survey on the procedure itself. How does one rate an overall surgical procedure when one is still in the pain of recovery…I was surveyed within 5 hours of a 7 hour procedure by a call agent that had no idea what I had just gone through.

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