Many Americans Have Low Level of Trust in Hospitals and Health Plans

NEW YORK CITY, Nov. 22 ??? Many Americans have a low level of trust in hospitals and health plans overall, but tend to be most trusting of non-profit hospitals and health plans, according to new study co-authored by The New York Academy of Medicine and published in the current issue of the peer-reviewed journal Health Affairs.

Seventy percent of the public sees frequent problems with the trustworthiness of health plans, and nearly half sees such problems with hospitals, according to the study, which was based on a 2002 survey of 5,000 Americans.

???American???s trust in health care providers has eroded. Thus, the importance of improving trustworthiness cannot be dismissed,??? said co-author Shannon Mitchell, Ph.D., associate research scientist in the Academy Division of Health and Science Policy and at Yale University.

Most Americans expect non-profit hospitals and health plans to be more trustworthy, but lower in quality, than their for-profit counterparts

Most Americans believe that non-profit hospitals and health plans are lower in quality than their for-profit counterparts???perhaps due to the implicit association between charity care and cut-rate services. But they also believe that non-profits are more trustworthy, fair, and humane. ???Because sizeable portions of the public see non-profit healthcare as more trustworthy and humane, policymakers must consider the use of ownership-related policies to bolster the caring aspect of our nation???s health care system,??? Mitchell said.

There has been long debate and little evidence about whether the public is at all concerned with who owns their hospitals???investors, or charitable organizations???and whether they even know the difference between for-profit and non-profit insurers. This study shows that for much of the American public, ownership does seem to matter, at least in their perceptions of the quality of care.

People with little understanding of the ownership concept expect for-profit hospitals and health plans to provide better quality, while people who understand the meaning of ownership expect non-profits to provide better quality. Furthermore, 50 percent of the public perceives the spread of for-profit, investor-owned hospitals and health care plans as a ???bad thing??? for the health care system, according to the study. The spread of for-profit ownership in the managed care industry ???almost certainly exacerbated public fears and the resultant backlash against managed care,??? the authors write.

Even though Americans believe that hospital and health plan quality differs based upon non-profit/for-profit status, it remains unclear whether people are actually choosing their care based upon ownership type. The next challenge for researchers and policymakers is to investigate whether perceptions are affecting real-life health care choices, the authors conclude.

Other co-authors of the research paper, published in the November/December issue of the journal, are Bradford H. Gray, Director of the Academy???s Division of Health and Science Policy, and Mark Schlesinger, Professor of Public Health at Yale and Rutgers Universities.

The New York Academy of Medicine is a non-profit institution founded in 1847 that is dedicated to enhancing the health of the public through research, education and advocacy, with a particular focus on urban populations, especially the disadvantaged. Visit the Academy online.

Read Media Coverage:

• medicalnewstoday.com

###

Posted on November 22, 2004

 Print   Subscribe

 

Contact:
Andrew J. Martin
Director of Communications
The New York Academy of Medicine
1216 Fifth Avenue
New York, New York 10029
212-822-7285
amartin@nyam.org

Press Release Archive