After reaching a historic low in April, the Thomson Reuters Consumer Healthcare Sentiment Index found that Americans’ confidence in their ability to pay for and access healthcare rose in May. The index rose three points from 95 in April to 98 in May, a statistically significant increase.
[See also: Healthcare consumer confidence plunges.]
All components of the Consumer Healthcare Sentiment Index remained significantly below their December 2009 baselines, but did show that consumers reported they were better able to pay for services and health insurance in the past three months and predicted they would be able to pay for services and insurance as well as fill needed prescriptions in the next three months.
“This recovery in confidence is encouraging when compared with last month’s numbers, but the month-to-month variability in sentiment could be an indication of underlying uncertainty among healthcare consumers,” cautioned Gary Pickens, chief research officer at the Thomson Reuters Center for Healthcare Analytics.
Thomson Reuters Consumer Healthcare Sentiment Index is based on a 3,000-household, monthly survey subset of the 100,000-household PULSE Healthcare Survey – a national, privately funded household survey of health behavior, attitudes, and utilization that has been running for more than 20 years.