The 7 Value Factors That Patients Look for in a Health Professional

When providing consulting and business coaching services to health care professionals I commonly hear something along the lines of “I’m pretty good at what I do, I’ve got all of the latest gear, and my fees are pretty competitive, but I’m still not growing my patient base. What am I doing wrong?”

Now these clinicians are generally experienced and proficient in the arts of their chosen profession, so on the surface it would seem that acquiring new patients and retaining existing ones should be a no brainer.

So what’s going on if you’ve got competitive pricing, good technical skills and all the latest and greatest technology, and you’re still not gaining traction? Maybe, just maybe, you’re focussing on the wrong things. The following are the factors that research tells us patients consider the most important when seeing a health professional.

1. Care and attention. This may seem like a no brainer, but it is a factor that tends to be overlooked by busy health professionals. When patients attend they are often at their most vulnerable and are as much seeking reassurance as they are seeking a cure.
2. Pain control. Let’s face it, many medical procedures can be uncomfortable and rather unpleasant for patients. It is no wonder then that 73% of respondents rated this factor as important to them.
3. Safety/Infection Control. Infection control can be considered a core business for health professionals, and this is the way patients see it too.
4. Technical Competence. This is the factor that health professionals tend to pay an inordinate amount of attention to. The reality though is that patients simply expect a minimum level of perceived competence. Once that minimum level is met, any further gains in patient satisfaction are marginal.
5. Convenience. Research has found that three of the four least important factors when patients make a decision about their health professionals were opening hours, waiting time and time spent with the health professional.
6. Facilities. Again, this is a factor to which an inordinate amount of attention is paid by health professionals. The reality is that the importance of facilities is more of a factor for staff than patients. Certainly, research suggests that it is not considered to be as important as other factors in determining patient satisfaction.
7. Cost/Price. For most businesses this cannot be ignored, but comes in low on the list of factors that patients consider. For the most part patients use cost as a proxy for quality. The two lowest-rated items are ‘Knowing in advance what the fee will be’ and ‘Believing that the fees are appropriate’.

The Takeaway

The seven factors mentioned above address certain consumer value elements. The more value elements that a health business (or any business for that matter) can satisfy the greater will be the clients’ loyalty and the higher the business’ sustained revenue growth.