88% of American consumers say that a health care provider’s willingness to accept their health care insurance is extremely or very important factor in their decision of where to receive care. Of these, 43% say it is extremely important.
Reference: How American evaluate provider quality in the United States. The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. Survey conducted May 27 2014 – June 18 2014.
Health insurance continues to play a huge role in determining where Americans go for their healthcare. Although rehabilitation providers have always had to work together with health insurance companies in order to be a provider of choice for their patients, seeing the actual percentages of patients who base their provider decision making on insurance coverage is helpful.
This statistic comes from a 2014 survey, and although things may have changed slightly, in general, today’s rehabilitation providers are still tied to their insurances. In some ways, providers can take heart that there are 12% of consumers who are not making their provider decision based solely on health insurance coverage. And there are 45% who say coverage is very important, as opposed to extremely important. However, in general, this statistic strongly reinforces the general perception that patients will look somewhere else for care if your clinic is not in network with their insurance.
