Issue link: https://beckershealthcare.uberflip.com/i/1075308
20 PATIENT EXPERIENCE 94% of patients expect their provider to tell them about bill payment options, survey finds By Kelly Gooch P atients are increasingly focused on their financial experience, according to the ClearBalance 2018 healthcare consumerism study. For the survey, patient financing company ClearBalance, in conjunction with healthcare research firm Porter Research, asked more than 4,000 U.S. patients about their percep- tions related to healthcare costs and how to pay their healthcare costs. Five findings: 1. Seventy-nine percent of respondents said they will ask their provider about payment options. 2. Ninety-four percent of respondents said they expect their provider to tell them about medical bill payment options, including using long-term financing. 3. Most respondents (92 percent) said they would go back to a healthcare facility that offers a loan program. 4. irty-six percent of respondents said they will delay care without patient financing. 5. Most respondents (89 percent) said they need more than 12 months to pay their healthcare costs. "Healthcare consumer loyalty is influenced by how early and how oen you commu- nicate with patients about their estimated cost of care and their payment options," ClearBalance President and CEO Bruce Haupt concluded. "Consumers remember how they're treated while they're repaying their medical bill and will compare their experiences with friends." n Most patients don't disclose relevant information to clinicians, study finds By Megan Knowles A nywhere from 60 to 80 percent of patients don't share relevant health information with their clinicians, a study published in JAMA Network Open found. The study, conducted by researchers at the University of Michigan in Ann Ar- bor, used an online survey to look at how often patients declined to disclose relevant information to their clinicians. The survey asked patients to share the aspects of their lives they failed to tell the truth about, such as exercise habits and whether they take their prescrip- tions correctly. The main reason patients withheld information was a fear of being judged by their clinicians, the study found. "There's certainly part of [this finding] that's internal," Brian Zikmund-Fish- er, PhD, who led the study, told The Michigan Daily. "[Patients] didn't want to take up more of their healthcare provider's time, they didn't want their healthcare providers to think they're stupid [and] they didn't want this infor- mation to be in their record." Younger adults were about 20 percent more likely to lie to providers than older patients, the study found. Specifically, younger female participants with worse self-rated health were more likely to withhold information. n Study: Surgery complications don't affect patient satisfaction By Megan Knowles P atient satisfaction with surgeon care does not appear to be linked to whether or not they experienced complications after an operation, a study published in Surgery found. The researchers compared how 529 patients rated their surgeons in satisfaction surveys after surgical procedures and the number and severity of complications these patients may have had. In all, 72 percent of the patients rated their surgeons as the "best possible" in satisfaction surveys. Fourteen percent of patients had complications after their procedures, with about 27 percent of complications being major or severe. Neither the number of complications nor the severity of complications seemed to affect whether patients gave their surgeons the highest marks in satisfaction surveys, the researchers found. The findings do not necessarily indicate satisfaction surveys are inaccurate, but suggest surgical quality assessments focusing only on complications may not capture every factor affecting how patients feel after surgery, senior study author Emily Winslow, MD, told Reuters. "Although complication rates should be lowered as much as possible, there is much more to high quality care of surgical patients than low complication rates, and it is those other things that we do not currently measure well and that patient satisfaction scores indirectly capture," Dr. Winslow said. n