How Consumers Pick Health Plans and Providers

Let’s take a deep breath and then stop talking about healthcare AI chatbots for a moment. Instead, let’s discuss how consumers choose health plans and providers. Their actual health plans and providers, not their AI health plans or providers.

Way back in February, the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) and Greenwald Research released the results of their 2025 Consumer Engagement in Health Care Survey. The 42-page report is based on a survey of 2,001 U.S. adults with health insurance. Of those respondents, 81% got their coverage through their employer or their spouse’s employer.

Of those with employer-based health insurance, 68% had a choice of traditional health plans, and 74% had a choice of high-deductible health plans (HDHPs). Regardless of plan type, the respondents said the most important aspect of picking a plan was having a “good network of physicians and hospitals.” That was true of 80% of the people with a choice of traditional plans and 76% of the people with a choice of HDHPs. A good provider network was more important to the respondents than other considerations like premium costs, out-of-pocket costs or prescription drug coverage.

Fast forward to July 20 when U.S. News and World Report released the results of its survey of 500 people who have sought medical care for themselves or a loved one from a hospital or physician within the past two years. Here are a few noteworthy findings from the survey:

• 53% said they selected a hospital first and then a physician or selected a hospital and a physician simultaneously.
• 47% said they selected their physician first, then a hospital.
• 22% said they selected a physician based on their clinical expertise and success rates. That was the highest-ranked reason for selecting a doctor.
• The highest-ranked reason for selecting a hospital was a referral by a physician. Respondents rated physician referrals a 4 on a 5-point scale of who to trust for a hospital referral.

When you put the two surveys together, they tell me people still pick their health plan or their provider based on who they want to see when they or a family member is sick or injured. Sure, there are a lot of other considerations, but they are secondary to going somewhere that can give them the most safe and effective medical care possible.

What about AI? In the EBRI/Greenwald survey, only 13% of the respondents said they trust AI “much” or “somewhat” more than healthcare providers to help them make healthcare decisions. In the U.S. News survey, AI chatbots got only a 2.7 on the 5-point scale for trustworthiness in making a hospital referral.

You chose to read this blog post, which was written by a real person without any assistance from AI.