I was on a flight from Chicago to Sacramento when a swollen lymph node in my neck cut off my airway. The crew wanted to make an emergency landing to get me to the hospital as soon as possible. I started to panic – not because I couldn’t breathe, but because I was terrified of how much an emergency landing would cost. Not to mention ambulance prices and bills from out-of-state emergency rooms, which may or may not be in my network.
I was 24 years old, and like many Americans, I learned to avoid medical care of any kind, except in a real emergency, and I completely embraced the “out of sight, out of mind” mentality when it came to my health .
Despite my fears, the pilot and crew insisted on an emergency landing. I was in a hospital in Salt Lake City for four days. It was unclear what caused my swollen lymph nodes, and when I returned to California, I was told to follow up with my primary care provider. Over the next 18 months, I frequently went to my doctor’s office for lab tests at noon, which resulted in weeks of work hours and a buildup of medical debt that would take years to recover!
Sadly, not much has changed when it comes to healthcare. The biggest advance has been the rapid adoption of digital health in healthcare, which has led to dramatic improvements for countless Americans. But even so, it’s not enough. Today, 78% of Americans still avoid or delay medical care and 29% avoid or delay basic preventive care.
When a patient misses an appointment, the continuity of care is interrupted. Acute conditions are more likely to go untreated into chronic conditions with complications. For Americans who already have chronic conditions, skipping appointments, screenings or lab work could have disastrous effects on health outcomes.
Most Americans don’t intentionally avoid or delay healthcare. Instead, existing U.S. health care models—including digital-first models—continue to overburden patients. Rather than asking patients to jump rope for care, healthcare professionals should ask themselves, “What can we do to make the patient experience smooth and enjoyable?”
What healthcare professionals can do now to improve patient care
Many people with health insurance, like me at 24, are still tormented by the financial fears of huge medical bills and discouraged by the inconvenience of seeking care.
It doesn’t have to be like this. Here are five actions healthcare providers and payers can take to reduce friction and ease the burden on patients.
- educate patients
Education is the first step to helping reduce the burden of patient care. For healthcare providers, it’s a relatively easy and simple action: inform patients that they have more convenient options for services, and facilitate the next step (or first steps) for patients to complete their plan of care. That could mean referring them to a pharmacy that offers delivery, or a lab testing service that meets them at home.
- encourage patients to accept
While patient education is critical to improving the consumer experience, it alone is not sufficient to change behavior and improve accessibility. From a healthcare provider’s perspective, following the instructions for a care plan may sound simple, but even small steps can seem overwhelming or unnecessary to a patient. One of the main reasons patients don’t get necessary preventive screenings, chronic disease maintenance medications, or time-consuming diagnoses is that they don’t believe they “need” it. They don’t see or feel the problem, so they don’t prioritize getting care.
Sometimes, patients need a little encouragement from their healthcare provider. The push can take the form of benefits or incentives that prioritize convenience and overall health options. With the right encouragement, patients will be more likely to feel committed to their health care plan.
- cost transparency
This is painful. Most of us have experienced it: unexpectedly receiving hundreds, if not thousands, of medical bills for a procedure you thought would be covered. I know this well. It started with a sinking feeling in the stomach, like a punch, and quickly gave way to anger at the manipulation and injustice of the healthcare system.
Unexpected medical bills are a major deterrent to patients, and recognizing this, Congress recently passed a law to prevent it. Even in serious medical emergencies, like what happened to me and my lymph nodes at 40,000 feet, the fear of outrageous medical bills can influence our decisions about how to get care. The solution is cost transparency. Patients need to know exactly how much care costs and how certain procedures are priced.
- Prioritize accessible care for patients with lower socioeconomic status
The option of convenient, at-home and virtual healthcare delivery should be available to all patients. However, not all patients have equal access to health care. Healthcare providers should place particular emphasis on prioritizing convenience and improving accessibility for those who face social barriers, such as lack of transportation, inability to take time off, child care issues, food insecurity, and precarious housing.
This requires healthcare providers to build a system to identify those in need and then prioritize education, motivation and encouragement with rigor and determination.
- Digital communications
Make it as easy as possible for patients to communicate with healthcare professionals, schedule appointments, and get prescription updates directly from their smartphone. At this point, digital communication is obvious. However, many vendors still do not implement or widely use digital communication systems. Direct communication with your care team can be very helpful for patients. In addition, it is very convenient for patients to obtain essential care services and request referrals. For me, having to call and visit in person for simple things like prescription renewals or referrals is a huge deterrent to timely care.
Removing barriers to care won’t be easy and won’t happen overnight, but with a consumer-driven health mindset, we can make healthcare more equitable. Whatever we can do to make health care more accessible to patients, we should. period.
Photo: wenmei Zhou, Getty Images
