How do Insiders Feel About Consumerism Now?

by Clive Riddle, March 26, 2010

In conjunction with last week’s Ninth Annual Consumerism Web Summit, MCOL conducted an e-poll of professionals, asking what components of consumerism are the most important, and how linked consumerism’s fate is to the outcome of health reform.

Survey respondents for 2010 and 2009 were asked the same questions regarding ranking typical components of Consumerism, and their perspective as a respondent. 2010 respondents were also asked, to what degree are health care consumerism initiatives dependent upon the outcome of any impending health care reform.

Respondents were asked to rank the five listed components 1 through 5, with 1 being the most important, and to only use each ranking once (only one item ranks 1, one item ranks 2, etc.)

Professionals continue to feel Price and Quality Transparency is the most important component by far.  Account based plans and wellness incentive programs end up close to distant tie for second, depending on the measure you use, followed by web based consumer patient health records and retail medicine.

Interestingly, if you examine the percent of respondents ranking an item as number 1, and consider the change from 2009 to 2010: transparency, account based plans and web based records all gained ground, while wellness incentives and retail medicine lost ground.

36.3% of respondents said that  consumerism initiatives were highly dependent upon the outcome of impending health care reform, while 41.2% said they were somewhat dependent and 22.5% said they were not very dependent.

Below are details regarding how respondents ranked components of consumerism, and their perspective as a respondent, for the past two years:

(Rank 1 through 5 with 1 = highest value and 5=lowest value, and only use each ranking once; i.e. only rate one item a 1, one item a 2, etc.)

	2010	2009	2010	2010
	Mean	Mean	Median	Mode
Price and Quality Transparency	1.85	2.00	1	1
Account Based Plans (HSA/HRA/FSA)	3.06	3.08	3	2
Wellness Incentive Programs	3.03	2.65	3	4
Web Based Consumer Patient Health Records	3.35	3.70	4	4
Retail Medicine (Convenient Care, etc)	3.69	3.57	4	5

Component	Rank 1: 2010	Rank 1: 2009	Rank 5: 2010	Rank 5: 2009
Price and Quality Transparency	59.4%	55.8%	7.0%	11.9%
Account Based Plans (HSA/HRA/FSA)	17.7%	12.8%	24.9%	17.9%
Wellness Incentive Programs	7.0%	20.9%	8.7%	3.6%
Web Based Consumer Patient Health Records	11.8%	4.7%	21.6%	31.0%
Retail Medicine (Convenient Care, etc)	4.3%	5.8%	37.8%	35.7%

Perspective of Respondent:	2009	2010
Purchaser (Health Plan, Employer, TPA, Agent, PBM)	30.6%	43.4%
Provider (Hospital, Physician, Pharmaceutical, Other Providers)	27.1%	24.0%
Vendor/Other (Vendors, Consultants, Institutions, Gov., All Other)	42.4%	31.8%

n = 189 for 2010, 85 for 2009