Health insurance customer satisfaction hits record high, while Humana is industry leader
Health insurance satisfaction surges 4% to a record-high of 76 (out of 100), with Humana maintaining its leadership position among insurers, according to the annual American Customer Satisfaction Index.
A new report from The American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) Insurance and Health Care Study has found that consumer satisfaction with health insurance hit a record high in the U.S. The report, which drew from interviews with 12,849 customers between October 2022 and September 2023, said that satisfaction with both health insurers and health providers had risen over that one year period.
The data found that satisfaction with health insurance satisfaction went up 4% to a record-high score of 76 (out of 100), with customer engagement points like call centers and websites improving 5% year over year. Over the same time hospital scores improved 4%, reaching their highest score (74) since 2018.
“For health insurance, efficiencies are improving as the industry continues to embrace advanced technology, and policyholders are taking notice,” says Forrest Morgeson, Associate Professor of Marketing at Michigan State University and Director of Research Emeritus at the ACSI. “Despite rising costs, consumers are more impressed with both the quality and value of their health insurance, and the improvement extends across the entire policyholder experience, including mobile apps. On the provider side, hospitals benefit from gains in outpatient satisfaction, while nonhospital care surges 11% as COVID-19 era medical office restrictions, like mask mandates and limits on the number of people in one’s care circle, lift.”
Better scores across the board
The ACSI scores for customer satisfaction with their experiences with health insurance plans improved across the board. Scores for the quality of customer experience with mobile apps improved from 80 to 84 between 2022 and 2023. The score for mobile app reliability also improved from 80 to 84 during that time. Satisfaction with access to primary care doctors improved from 77 to 81. Website satisfaction improved with the same numbers. And access to specialty care doctors and hospitals improved from 76 to 80.
The report found that the ACSI score for nonhospital health care improved from 73 in 2022 to 81 in 2023; an 11% improvement. For hospital care, the score improved from 71 to 74, a smaller but still significant improvement of 4%. When drilling down on different areas of care, hospital outpatient care improved from 77 to 81 between 2022 and 2023. Inpatient care scores actually dropped, from 74 to 72. And emergency room care scores rose only slightly, from 66 to 67.
“The faltering inpatient care experience could be attributed to any number of reasons, but staffing shortages are hard to ignore,” the report said. “Job openings across the sector have reached an all-time high, while some 1,400 hospitals admitted to significant staffing shortages to the federal government last year, per American Hospital Association’s 2023 Health Care Workforce Scan.”
Insurers generally improve scores
The report noted that improvement at customer engagement points on the technology side was part of the reason insurers scored better this year. “Health insurers experienced widespread policyholder satisfaction gains, with all but one provider upping their ACSI score,” the report said.
Humana was the industry leader for 2023, improving 6% to 82. The group of smaller health insurers (up 8%) and UnitedHealth (up 4%) tie for second at 78, followed by Aetna, which increases 4% to 77.
Related: Insurance IQ: Consumers don’t understand basic health insurance, survey finds
Customer satisfaction with health plans can be dependent on many factors, according to a June 2023 study from KFF. That report noted that affordability can play a role as can health status. “Most insured adults (81%) give their health insurance an overall rating of “excellent” or “good,” though ratings vary based on health status,” the report said.
The KFF report noted that when people have health issues, they tend to rate health insurers lower. And customer experience in that report was a significant issue: “A majority of insured adults (58%) say they have experienced a problem using their health insurance in the past 12 months – such as denied claims, provider network problems, and pre-authorization problems,” the report said.
The higher marks for customer experience that ACSI found may be a sign that such problems are being addressed for some consumers.