Patients who trust and feel understood by their providers are more likely to adhere to treatment plans, seek prompt medical care, and have better overall health. Given the clinical relevance of patient-provider relationships, it is surprising that they have only recently become the focus of empirical attention. This may be due partly to the fact that these relationships are difficult to define, quantify, and operationalize. Current practices around patient-provider relationships illustrate consistent patterns with respect to major barriers that prevent or hinder a strong relationship. Since communication is based more on how messages are sent and received rather than the actual words uttered, cultural interpretations may differ because provider and patient are not using a common language when they are receiving or sending messages.
Implications of Referring to Patients as Customers
Research shows potential future harms of referring to patients as customers. This shift in perspective to providing a customer-driven healthcare system may alter healthcare in ways that are not completely positive and might be influenced by efforts to market healthcare services to patients because patients could be viewed as consumers and competitors. This change in provider mindset from “care provider” to “competitor” (in the minds of the patients) logically could have substantial, negative consequences for the profession and for patient care even if the provider actual “care upped its quality.”
From a standpoint of patient care, the emphasis on “exceeding customer expectations” does not allow for the unfortunate circumstances of a patient’s illness to take precedence over the patient’s wants; when service providers focus exclusively on “Customer as King” instead of “Patient as Person,” patients’ autonomy can be threatened. From a moral and ethical standpoint, there are a number of bioethicists who raise concerns and ponder whether it is truly ethically appropriate to direct efforts towards targeting a particular, affluent market segment instead of utilizing valuable resources to provide treatments and aid where they are urgently required.
Conversely, perhaps healthcare does benefit from the “market forces” of the commercial sector today. While they are not “customers,” even patients who do not have access to the commercial health complex anymore have the right to expect the same quality care. Thus, these “market forces” cause us to make sure we are the best. Thus, while health-related industries do not fit the model of typical for-profit enterprises, the tension between professionalism and customer orientation can be a creative force. Marketing and healthcare professionals in consultation with other stakeholders (such as bioethicists and healthcare policy makers) must frame the concept of the “patient” or “consumer” in ways that account for, even as they try to influence, all these complexities.
The patient-provider relationship has evolved due to changes in healthcare, shifting the patient’s role to that of a partner in treatment and cooperation. Concerns about using “customer” in healthcare have been raised due to potential negative connotations and its association with commercialization. This shift can impact the ethical aspect of the provider-patient relationship. The inclination to treat a patient as a customer can lead to ambiguity, as the term “client” carries various social implications. Customers are considered moral entities in society, and labeling a patient as a customer doesn’t alter the rules of the patient-provider relationship. Although terminating a transactional relationship with a customer is a choice, the same rules should not apply to patients, given providers’ substantial responsibilities.
