{"id":345,"date":"2016-09-15T17:32:23","date_gmt":"2016-09-16T00:32:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.sprucehealth.com\/?p=345"},"modified":"2023-10-26T06:18:11","modified_gmt":"2023-10-26T13:18:11","slug":"surprise-millennials-arent-only-patients-want-telehealth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sprucehealth.com\/blog\/surprise-millennials-arent-only-patients-want-telehealth\/","title":{"rendered":"Surprise! Millennials Aren&#8217;t the Only Patients Who Want Telehealth"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In our last post, we covered some recent evidence that <a href=\"https:\/\/sprucehealth.com\/blog\/millennials-want-doctors-use-telehealth-evidence\/\">millennial patients<\/a> prefer doctors who use\u00a0telehealth in\u00a0their practices. Those studies\u00a0are compelling, but what we left out was that the same research\u00a0also suggests that\u00a0older generations want to use\u00a0telehealth, too.<\/p>\n<p>It turns out that Generation X and the baby boomers (and beyond!) are also adopting cell phones and the internet for their healthcare needs, and they are often doing so at a rate that rivals that of millennials. In a 2015 study, for instance, 12.1% of non-millennials reported that they had communicated electronically with a healthcare or health insurance professional in the past year, in comparison to 11.8% of millennials who said the same.[1] The study also found that 21.3% of non-millennials had used a website in the prior year to make an appointment, check lab results, or manage prescriptions, activities which were performed by only 20% of the millennials surveyed.<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps these intergenerational numbers are similar because the typical millennial is more likely to use technology\u00a0but less likely to need healthcare, whereas\u00a0the typical baby boomer is the opposite, causing the overall rates of healthcare technology use to be\u00a0unexpectedly equivalent. That may be partially true, but surveys of telehealth preference by patient age also show more agreement between generations than you might expect.<\/p>\n<h1>Generation X&#8230;But Online!<\/h1>\n<p>Don&#8217;t count these 35- to 54-year-olds out of the telehealth party. From 2016 survey data:[2]<\/p>\n<ul style=\"list-style-type: disc;\">\n<li><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>66%<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0would be open to virtual care treatment options as an alternative to in-office doctor\u2019s visits for non-urgent matters (an absolute 2%\u00a0<span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>more<\/strong><\/span> than millennials)<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>60%<\/strong><\/span> would\u00a0choose a primary care doctor who offers a patient app over one who\u00a0does not (10% less than millennials)<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>53%<\/strong><\/span> would\u00a0choose a primary care doctor who offers virtual care treatment options over one who\u00a0does not (1%\u00a0<span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>more<\/strong><\/span> than millennials)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Data from a 2015 study also show that <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>5 to 8%<\/strong><\/span> of these patients\u00a0would actually switch doctors based on availability of online visits.[3] That&#8217;s something like half the comparable rate for millennials, but it&#8217;s not zero, either.<\/p>\n<h1>Baby Boomers&#8230;Also Online!<\/h1>\n<p>They are 55+, and they&#8217;ve got their reasons for telehealth. From 2016 survey data:[2]<\/p>\n<ul style=\"list-style-type: disc;\">\n<li><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>57%<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0would be open to virtual care treatment options as an alternative to in-office doctor\u2019s visits for non-urgent matters (7% less\u00a0than millennials)<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>51%<\/strong><\/span> would\u00a0choose a primary care doctor who offers a patient app over one who\u00a0does not (19% less than millennials)<\/li>\n<li><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>37%<\/strong><\/span> would\u00a0choose a primary care doctor who offers virtual care treatment options over one who\u00a0does not (15% less\u00a0than millennials)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Perhaps most interestingly, of the baby boomers in the\u00a0study who said they would be open to virtual care, 74% felt that way because\u00a0it would be more convenient, but only 40% felt that way because it would be easier on their schedule. This implies that &#8220;convenience&#8221; is not always\u00a0about scheduling, and perhaps it often has more to do with\u00a0travel requirements or other pragmatic issues\u00a0that become more difficult as age increases and health declines.<\/p>\n<p>Also interestingly, 40% of the surveyed baby boomers who were open to virtual care held that view because they felt such care would lessen the risk of getting sick from other patients. In contrast, only 26% of Generation X and 31% of millennial respondents shared this worry. This suggests\u00a0the tantalizing idea that the various potential benefits of telehealth may not appeal equally to each generation but that they might still combine to produce\u00a0a\u00a0net outcome\u00a0of desirability across all\u00a0age groups.<\/p>\n<p>Oh and apparently even 3 to 5% of your baby boomer patients will leave you for a doctor who provides online visits, so there&#8217;s that.[3] Fickleness is not exclusive to millennials, so get your telehealth game on point before you get disconnected.<\/p>\n<p><em>Warning: the best studies on this topic were sponsored by organizations with a vested interest in the outcome, so the data might be highly biased. Use as food for thought only.<\/em><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>References:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Lerman, K. <i>Healthcare Without Borders: How Millennials are Reshaping Health and Wellness<\/i>. (Communispace, 2015).<\/li>\n<li>Steinfeld, J., Salesforce Research &amp; Harris Poll. <i>2016 Connected Patient Report: Insights Into Patient Preferences on Telemedicine, Wearables and Post-Discharge Care<\/i>. (Salesforce, 2016).<\/li>\n<li>Modahl, M., Meinke, S., American Well &amp; Harris Poll. <i>Telehealth Index: 2015 Consumer Survey<\/i>. (American Well, 2015).<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In our last post, we covered some recent evidence that millennial patients prefer doctors who use\u00a0telehealth in\u00a0their practices. Those studies\u00a0are compelling, but what we left out was that the same research\u00a0also suggests that\u00a0older generations want to use\u00a0telehealth, too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":443,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"slim_seo":{"title":"Surprise! Millennials Aren't the Only Patients Who Want Telehealth - Spruce Blog","description":"In our last post, we covered some recent evidence that millennial patients prefer doctors who use\u00a0telehealth in\u00a0their practices. Those studies\u00a0are compelling, b"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[13,5,4],"different-template":[],"class_list":["post-345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-telemedicine","tag-literature","tag-telehealth","tag-telemedicine"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sprucehealth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sprucehealth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sprucehealth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sprucehealth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sprucehealth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=345"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sprucehealth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sprucehealth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/443"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sprucehealth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sprucehealth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sprucehealth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=345"},{"taxonomy":"different-template","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sprucehealth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/different-template?post=345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}