The Value of Knowing: Most People Want and Are Willing to Pay For Predictive Tests
The Price of Prediction
For healthcare marketing, there’s value in knowing people’s preferences and the medical gateways that are important to consumers. It’s important insight for healthcare providers, hospitals and other medical and patient-facing organizations.
People--healthcare consumers and prospective patients, that is--tell researchers they want tests that predict if certain serious diseases are likely to be part of their future. What’s more, according to this research, they would be willing to pay cash for these tests.
And for the patient, there’s a "value in knowing" about their future health, hypothetically. This research, touted as the largest study of it’s kind, concludes “people valued diagnostic information for a host of health and non-health reasons,” and that the "value of knowing" may be under-recognized in healthcare analyses.
The top concerns, according to a study published in Health Economics, are prostate cancer, breast cancer, arthritis and Alzheimer’s disease. All four health issues ranked above 70 percent in research out of Tufts Medical Center for the Evaluation of Value and Risk in Health.
On average, survey respondents were willing to pay $300 to $600 out-of-pocket depending on the specific disease and the accuracy of the test. On the other hand, older respondents, women, those with a bachelor's or higher degree, and those with healthier behaviors were less inclined to undergo testing, even if it were free. About 24% of individuals sampled elected not to take the predictive test.
The study, Willingness to Pay for Predictive Diagnostic Information with No Immediate Treatment: A Survey of U.S. Residents, examined individuals' willingness to take and pay for hypothetical predictive laboratory tests. For more information about refining your target audience and making every marketing dollar count, visit the HS website.
