I Am the New(er) Health Care Consumer
I tore my meniscus. I was out for a nice run and was within eyesight of home when…pop. Immediate pain. Inability to walk. I hobbled home. Within several hours I could not put weight onto that leg or walk or move. It was a Friday evening. I found a hospital-based urgent ortho clinic and thought, what a great concept…an urgent ortho clinic. I was pleased that I didn’t need to go to regular urgent care or the ED or wait until Monday, but, unfortunately, the experience turned into a saga of frustration.
An eight day delay to get an MRI at the hospital. Instead, I went to an independent MRI that got me in within two days. There was a three-week delay for the hospital-based surgical consult. Another three-plus week wait before the surgery along with multiple provider-patient interactions I felt were not patient-centered. I was done. I canceled the hospital outpatient surgery and called an independent orthopedics practice with a surgical suite (in another city). It was a Friday. They scheduled me for a surgical consult that Monday. The new surgeon expressed concern that my knee – already with some arthritis in it and a torn meniscus flap stuck in the knee joint – was left like this for over a month already. He scheduled surgery for that Wednesday. Super patient-centered. Super responsive. Great customer service. Great patient safety and high quality outcomes.
Let’s recap: my knee is doing great! Had I stayed with the hospital-based services, it would have taken approximately two months from original urgent ortho to surgery (with a structurally impaired knee). What I did instead was have an independent MRI in two days and an independent surgical consult and surgery in less than a week.
Here’s what I’ll tell everyone in health care. I am the future health care consumer. I don’t want to hear that eight days is an “acceptable” time to wait for an MRI and that I need to wait months for a surgery. I am not a cog in your process. I am the patient. I can’t walk. My knee does not straighten. I have my own money (I’m fortunate). I have my own insurance (again, I’m fortunate). I have my own mind and will find a provider who offers me better service, better costs, and high quality/outcomes. If anyone doesn’t think consumers are (or will be in the future) willing to do that, you’ve not been paying enough attention.
My advice: remember the patient. Adapt to what we’re looking for or it will cost you.
Jennifer Boese is the Director of Health Care Policy at CLA. She is a highly successful public policy, legislative, advocacy and political affairs leader, including working in both the state and federal government as well as the private sector. She brings over 20 years of government relations and public policy knowledge with her to CLA. Well over half of her career has been spent dedicated to health care policy and the health care industry, affording her a deep understanding of the health care market and environment, health care organizations and health care stakeholders. Her role at CLA is to provide thought leadership, policy analysis and strategic insights to health care providers across the continuum related to the industry's ongoing transformation towards value. A key focus of that work is on market innovations and emerging payment models. Her goal is to help CLA clients navigate and thrive in an increasingly dynamic health care environment.
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