When Employees Aren’t Buying What You’re Selling 

With healthcare costs continuing to increase and out of pocket per capita expenditures exceeding $1,000 it would seem to defy logic that only a small minority of consumers have tried the new types of low-cost, convenient healthcare services that have become available in recent years, such as telehealth, retail clinics and healthcare apps. In their newly released consumer survey, Oliver Wyman explores this consumer resistance. Here’s what they learned:

1. Those who have tried these alternative forms of healthcare delivery – the “new front door” to healthcare -- are happy with them.
2. Despite that finding, there hasn’t been much change in the number of consumers – about 10 percent – who have actually used these services, though the number who say they are willing to try them is rising sharply.
3. Trust and comfort remain obstacles to the adoption of a newer model of healthcare, though these issues play out in a more complex fashion than we perhaps expected.
4. There is indeed a hunger for a new healthcare experience, but what consumers want is not what most companies in healthcare are offering. This suggests if consumers are not yet buying, it’s because industry offerings are not yet compelling enough to overcome consumer resistance.

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