Eight discrete journeys define the end-to-end consumer healthcare experience
McKinsey & Co. 3/14/2023
Consumers have no shortage of pain points that healthcare payers and providers could address to better meet their needs. But reimagining healthcare through a consumer lens starts with understanding that consumers have widely divergent experiences with healthcare and attach different levels of importance and satisfaction to the eight steps they take along the healthcare journey (Exhibit 1). Even for a single step, such as getting insurance coverage or finding care, consumer perceptions of importance and satisfaction vary widely. For example, shopping and signing up for coverage is more important for consumers with noncommercial coverage than for those with commercial coverage. Medicare and Medicaid members attach equivalent levels of importance to the experience of getting coverage, but Medicare members are far more satisfied with that experience.4 Given these differences, it is critical to understand consumer needs at a granular level and to contextualize their experiences.