The Consumerization of Health Care: How Patients Are Reshaping the Industry

Are health care products just another consumer good, like something purchased in a supermarket or from an online retailer?

Yes, said almost half of the nearly 10,000 respondents to a ten-country BCG survey aimed at understanding consumer attitudes toward health care. Further, roughly two in three want more control over their treatment choices and costs, and more than 60% expect the same convenience from health care that they’d get from a retail store. Together, these findings reflect the continued evolution of a long-standing trend that we refer to as health care consumerization.

More and more, consumers want information, convenience, value, personalization, and agency in health care contexts. This shift is playing out in real life as consumers proactively seek particular treatments: GLP-1 drugs for weight loss (like Mounjaro and Wegovy), sexual health medicines (like Cialis and Viagra), aesthetic treatments (like Botox and dermal fillers), and health care monitors (like blood pressure and glucose monitors). They also want more immediate access to health care information through digital devices and apps, and greater control over health care costs.

These shifts in consumer demand are occurring hand in hand with the growing influence of AI. Consumers have increasing access to general and personalized health care information and can more easily research options, compare alternatives, and participate in decisions about their health care.

This change in dynamics—from the old days of institutional, provider-driven health care decision making to the new world of consumer choice and influence—signals a profound change for health care organizations. Patients expect more choice, convenience, transparency, and personalization, as well as better service and access. Accordingly, biopharma and medtech companies, providers, and payers are adapting their approaches to address health care consumerization even as they navigate the clinical, financial, and regulatory constraints distinct to health care.

Survey Results: What Consumer-Patients Want from Health Care

To compare how strongly consumers have embraced consumerization attitudes across countries, we developed a health care consumerization index. (See the exhibit.) The index combines six survey measures spanning expectations of convenience, control over treatment, control over costs, views of health care products as consumer goods, preference for online health information, and trust in online health information. Scores range from 0 to 100 and reflect the average level of agreement across these measures. Higher scores indicate more strongly expressed consumerization attitudes. (See “Survey Methodology.”)

The scores yielded by the index are a useful indicator of trends in each country overall, but precisely what patients want regarding their health care varies across markets. Explore the health care consumerization survey data by country, in the slideshow module below.

The survey findings suggest that consumerization emerges along different pathways, shaped by national health care systems, by experiences and expectations in other consumer industries, by the availability of digital tools that give patients greater access to information, and by cultural and legal factors such as data protection laws. We also found that consumerization attitudes vary across demographic groups.

Health Care Consumerization by Geography. The consumerization of health care has taken stronger hold in some countries than in others: In our survey, China, India, the UAE, and Brazil have the highest health care consumerization scores—a result likely driven by multiple factors. Health care systems in many emerging markets have evolved relatively recently, so patients have “grown up” with a more contemporary and consumer-oriented attitude. Also, in markets where the share of out-of-pocket spending has historically been relatively large, patients may view health care as a household purchasing decision and may exhibit typical consumer behaviors—comparing options, weighing value, and exercising greater choice—in connection with it. Fragmented or constrained access to health care may reinforce this tendency by requiring patients to take a more active role in finding and securing care.

But patients in nations with more firmly established systems are looking for greater control of their health care, too. Among countries in this group, consumerization is highest in the US, while attitudes in the Western European countries we surveyed are relatively less consumerized. This is perhaps a reflection of a higher degree of public care provision and funding in Europe.

Japan is the least consumerized of the ten countries we surveyed, which may partly reflect the country’s demographics: according to the World Economic Forum, its population is the world’s oldest.

These geographic patterns are fairly consistent throughout our survey. On most aspects of consumerization that we asked about, China came out on top, followed by India, the UAE, and Brazil. There are, however, some interesting exceptions. For example, when asked whether they would rather obtain instantly available health care information from online resources such as ChatGPT, Google, or WebMD than await advice from a health care professional, respondents from the US were more likely than respondents from Brazil to agree (45% versus 40%). And when asked whether they wanted more control over health care choices, Brazilian respondents were the most likely of all survey participants to say yes, at 82%.

Health Care Consumerization by Gender. In most countries, men’s and women’s responses were less than 5 percentage points apart on the majority of questions.

China stands out, showing the greatest difference in responses by gender: women scored 9 points higher than men on our consumerization index. Local context, economic, demographic, and other factors likely play a major role in these variations.

Across the ten surveyed markets, men are marginally more likely than women to believe that medical information obtained online is as reliable as information provided by a health care professional (42% versus 38%). We’ve seen similar trends in other consumer industries. The question isn’t how many patients consult online sources, but how those resources shape the decisions patients make about their health care.

Health Care Consumerization by Generation. We expected younger generations to be at the forefront of the shift toward health care consumerization, as they tend to be the cohort most willing to embrace change. And indeed, we found that millennials (those born in the years spanning 1981 through 1996) and Gen Z-ers (born in the years 1997 through 2012) show the strongest consumer mindset in most countries.

For example, the belief that medicines, pharmaceuticals, and other health care products are just like other consumer goods varies by age group, with Gen Z-ers and millennials expressing almost the same level of agreement with this statement, at 52% and 53%, respectively. In contrast, 41% of Gen X-ers (born in the years 1965 through 1980) agree, and just 31% of baby boomers (born in the years 1946 through 1964) do.

Millennials are the generation most likely to prefer an instant AI or online answer to waiting for a health care professional, at 52%, slightly ahead of Gen Z-ers at 47%. Baby boomers are the least likely to share that preference, at just 25%.

This suggests that “digital nativeness,” a defining trait of younger generations, is an important factor. But other elements seem to play a role as well: Gen Z-ers may be digitally fluent but still value human guidance when making complex, high-stakes decisions that they might have only limited experience with. BCG has observed this generational pattern in other industries.

Health Care Consumerization by Income. As we expected, consumerization rises with income in nearly every market. The income-based contrast was particularly pronounced in responses to the survey question about willingness to pay out-of-pocket for health and well-being products such as GLP-1 drugs: 48% of higher-income respondents said they were willing to do so, versus 31% of lower-income respondents.

Different factors drive the trend toward self-purchase. Payers may not cover what consumer-patients want; insurance coverage may be set up in counterintuitive ways (for example, self-pay is cheaper than insurance plus copay in some countries); and some people opt not to take out health insurance, and instead effectively self-insure.

We see the narrowest gap by income (7 to 8 percentage points) on two questions: 65% of higher-income respondents and 57% of lower-income respondents expect the same level of convenience and customer service from health care providers; and 69% of higher-income respondents and 62% of lower-income respondents want more control over their health care choices, including the treatments, medicines, and care options they receive. Yet even where the differences are smallest, higher-income respondents consistently have stronger consumerization expectations than lower-income respondents, reinforcing the link between income and consumerization.

How Much Further Can the Consumerization of Health Care Go?

It’s an open question.

Consumerization is a strong force that challenges several core tenets of traditional health care in many countries: the role of physicians as the primary decision makers, the role of health care regulators in maintaining product efficacy and safety, the role of payers as financial gatekeepers, and, perhaps most importantly, the notion of health care as a fundamental human right.

Biomedical innovation will continue to produce increasingly sophisticated products that blur the line between traditional health care and the cosmetics, lifestyle, and fitness industries. We expect to see a proliferation of anti-aging, longevity-enhancing treatments; wearable devices that enable real-time measurement of more and more biomarkers; AI-powered personalized treatment algorithms and devices; AI-enabled care delivery models that expand access beyond traditional settings; and more. These will offer more innovation and greater convenience and access, and patients are likely to respond to them with enthusiasm and uptake. AI and digital innovation will amplify this response by giving patients more control over how, where, and from whom they receive care.

But there are limits. Most pharmaceuticals and medical devices will probably never be widely available without a prescription. Ultimately, physicians and other health care professionals will continue to determine which products patients use and will retain responsibility for outcomes, owing to the complexity and potentially serious consequences of those decisions. Consumer-patients are not always informed enough to navigate these decisions themselves. Furthermore, treatment and care are often regulated by medical guidelines and shaped by established clinical practices. Choice is not as free as it might appear, given constraints imposed by insurance design, provider networks, clinical urgency, and uneven access to information.

Even digital-first models of health care delivery—in which patients self-diagnose with an AI-based symptom checker, choose a therapy from an app storefront, and obtain approval in minutes from an algorithm or a clinician—are not a panacea. They can improve access for some patients, but they typically exclude people with limited connectivity, digital confidence, or health literacy. And they raise the risk that care delivery may become fragmented (if patients use multiple such digital health platforms) and lose the advantage of having access to a holistic view of the patient.

As a result, although we expect the consumerization of health care to continue, complete consumerization is unlikely. Instead, it will take different forms, gaining the most strength in areas where patients can exercise greater choice and safely manage aspects of their care and influencing more complex treatments as patients research options more thoroughly, arrive better informed, and participate more actively in decisions with their physicians. Biopharmas, medtechs, providers, and payers will have to adapt to consumer expectations in these areas.

What Health Care Leaders Should Do Now

Achieving the best outcomes for patients remains the overarching goal of health care organizations. The increasing consumerization of the field gives leaders of those organizations reason to broaden their focus so they can better understand consumer-patients’ expectations and preferences and how these vary by geography, socioeconomics, generation, and other dimensions.

The implications of the new competitive dynamic in different health care sectors differ materially by sector:

• For biopharma, consumerization raises the importance of earning patient trust earlier in the journey (including by making reliable information discoverable via large language models), designing products around attributes that patients value, and rethinking pricing and access in settings where patients pay directly.
• For medtech, consumerization can shift who chooses and operates the product, putting greater emphasis on consumer-grade usability, software and services, new channels, and pricing models.
• For providers, the challenge is increasingly about managing the patient relationship: being considered in search and AI results, simplifying access, and combining consumer-grade convenience with clinical accountability and continuity.

Outlook

As health care consumerization takes hold across the world, convenience, personalization, transparency, and trust are becoming part of the value proposition. Consumer-patients expect more intuitive, responsive, and personalized health care experiences across the journey.

Organizations that adapt successfully will treat patients not simply as recipients of health care but as informed, empowered participants who have a growing role in decisions about their care. Greater patient agency can enable better-informed choices, but it can also expose patients to misinformation, fragmented journeys, and incentives that may not align with clinical value. The strategic challenge is therefore to understand the factors influencing patient decisions, distinguish between varied needs and motivations, and invest accordingly. Leading health care organizations will translate the expectations of consumer-patients into models that improve the experience while preserving clinical quality, equity, and outcomes.

The authors thank Gaby Barrios and BCG’s Center for Customer Insight (CCI) team for their assistance with the survey. CCI is sponsored by BCG's Marketing, Sales & Pricing practice and Global Advantage practice. For more information, please visit the Center for Customer Insight.