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Do You Think of your Patients as Consumers? Get Ready for the Baby Boomers! |
Recent studies show that a patient attitudes are changing. Gone are the days when patients take what the doctor recommends as gospel truth. Patients, especially the baby boomers, are treating doctors as they do any service provider in their life. This demographic group of patients will make up the majority of patients over the next ten years. They are a group with high expectations for service; they want it now, they want it cheap, and they want it convenient. They don’t respect authority. They get their health information from the internet.
That’s why the retailization of medicine is one of the top up and coming physician trends. With Walmart, CVS and a host of other national companies coming on the scene to provide healthcare services in a convenient, inexpensive delivery model, pressure will be on physicians to do accordingly. Will physicians figure out how to position themselves in this new competitive marketplace or will they succumb to the system and be a salaried employee for the government It won’t happen in the next year, but the trend is clear.
Let us know your thoughts.
1 Comment
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Monday, 02 May 2011
posted by C. A. Carraway, DC, DIBCN, CLS
Desiree,
You are exactly correct with this posting. The face of health care is changing and changing rapidly. I feel that we shall never pass this way again. In this internet information based world that we live in. Patient are savy and are smart shoppers. They are not so much looking for bargins as they are looking for the best most effective care they can find.
Those in the health care field who are not actively working to retool not only their mode of practice but their attitudes towards treating patients a consumers are in for a rough ride. I consider myself as hired worker to adderss a health issue that a patient has. I work like a mechanic or a IT person. Toss me a problem that is within my scope of practice and it is my job to find a resolution in a timely and cost effective manner. Just a hired worker.....nothing more.
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