Millennials are bringing new attitudes and perspectives to healthcare that have the potential to significantly change the industry.
Unlike the generations before them, millennials are valuing convenience and time-saving technologies over personal, face-to-face visits with doctors, according to USA Today.
Almost half of people age 18 to 34 do not have a personal relationship with their doctors, a 2015 Salesforce report found. More than 70 percent of millennials are interested in using mobile apps to access their medical records and manage their healthcare, too.
“If you look at the demands of millennials on our society as consumers, they are a group that uses services such as Amazon and the Internet who aren’t really used to person-to-person service per se,” said Dr. Ron Rowes, chief medical officer of Prominence Health Plan, in an interview with the newspaper. “They’re used to reaching out when they need something, getting instant gratification, moving on and only coming back when they have the need again.”
This desire for convenience has contributed to the recent rise of urgent care centers and express clinics in stores like CVS, Walgreens and Target, USA Today noted. The number of retail clinics in the U.S. jumped by almost 900 percent between 2006 and 2014, and millennials use the clinics more than other generations, with 34 percent of those age 18-34 preferring retail clinics compared to 17 percent of baby boomers.
These changes are also likely to affect healthcare hiring practices and employee skill sets. According to Hospitals & Health Networks Magazine, hospitals will need to hire more community healthcare workers and will need employees who are experts in data collection and analysis as well as well as skilled in technology applications such as telemedicine.
And while millennials are a cost-conscious generation, experts fear that their heavy usage of express clinics and rejection of traditional doctor-patient relationship could drive up healthcare costs overall, according to the International Business Times. Healthcare spending is to increase an average of 4.9 percent annually between 2014 to 2024, the source noted.