The experience gap in healthcare starts with an identity gap

Healthcare is at a crossroads. Patients compare every interaction with their providers or health plans to experiences with rideshare apps, streaming platforms, and online retailers. They expect to be recognized instantly, served personally, and never asked to repeat themselves. And when healthcare falls short, they notice.

New research from S&P Global's 451 Research team makes the scale of that expectation clear. Ninety-five percent of consumers say healthcare experiences should match the personalized standards set by leading consumer brands. Eighty-five percent say they would consider switching providers if they repeatedly encounter incorrect or inconsistent information about themselves. And 81% already report having to provide the same personal or medical information across different providers and departments.

The promise of a better patient experience is within reach. But it depends on solving a long-standing challenge that sits beneath nearly every digital initiative in healthcare: trusted identity.

Experience isn’t the problem. It's fragmentation

When patients feel as if they are "starting from scratch" every time they interact with a different part of the system, and 68% assert as much, the issue isn't a single broken workflow. It's a system that doesn't know “who is who” across the moments that matter.

Records lay scattered across electronic health records, customer relationship management (CRM) platforms, claims systems, scheduling tools, and patient portals. Each one captures a part of the person. But none, on its own, sees the entire individual. The result is a patient journey that breaks at every seam: duplicate intake forms, mismatched coverage information, referrals sent to the wrong place, follow-up messages for appointments that have already happened.

Healthcare organizations feel the consequences as sharply as patients do. Eighty-four percent report that data mismatches directly contribute to lost revenue. Meanwhile, 72% of providers and payers say inconsistent identity data creates friction that consumers feel in every micro-moment of engagement. And 83% agree that data quality issues are actively undermining the effectiveness of their marketing and CRM investments.

In other words, identity isn't a back-office IT issue anymore. It's a frontline driver of experience, loyalty, and growth.

Where the cracks surface

Identity gaps emerge across four areas of the patient journey, and each one carries real cost.

Patient access and the front door. One-half of providers cite scheduling and patient access as the area most disrupted by inconsistent data. First impressions get shaped here, and so does the access to care itself. In fact, 55% of consumers say they have delayed or avoided care because they could not easily schedule an appointment or find a provider.

Care coordination and navigation. Referrals, clinical handoffs, and follow-up outreach all depend on reliably identifying the patient across systems. When that identity can't be trusted, coordination quietly breaks down, and the people who pay the price are those who most need continuity.

Digital experience. Younger patients are the most vocal. 72% of those ages 18 to 34 reported difficulties using digital tools during their most recent healthcare experiences, compared with just 30% of those ages 55 and older. As digital-native populations engage more with healthcare, this gap will only widen.

Revenue cycle and administration. Errors in identity, demographic, or insurance data lead directly to billing mistakes, coverage discrepancies, duplicate claims, and delayed reimbursements. They erode operational efficiency and patient trust simultaneously.

Patient experience is now a top strategic priority

Healthcare leaders see the big picture. Improving the patient experience now ranks as the No. 1 strategic priority for the next 12 to 18 months, cited by 48% of organizations, ahead of digital transformation, cost reduction, and workforce efficiency. That proportion rises to 53% among C-level and strategic executives.

The shift matters. It reveals that experience is no longer downstream of digital strategy. It is the strategy. And it cannot be delivered without a trusted identity foundation underneath it.

The path forward

Closing the experience gap calls for more than incremental fixes to individual workflows. It calls for a unified, enterprise-wide identity foundation that links data across systems and ensures every interaction connects to the correct person. When identity is accurate, complete, and continuously updated, micro-moments become a coordinated experience.

The benefits compound. Care teams gain access to reliable data. Workflows run with less friction. Patients feel recognized rather than processed. And organizations’ digital, customer 360, and AI investments begin to deliver because the data feeding them can be trusted.

The age of healthcare consumerism has arrived. The organizations that can confidently answer "who is who" across every system and touchpoint will be the ones positioned to close the experience gap.

Joe Hickey is the vice president of provider markets at Verato.