When you’re thinking about improving patient engagement, it’s easy to focus on the effect it will have on your practice alone. The benefits speak for themselves: If you do it well, you’ll get more business, retain more patients, and remain more profitable.
On the other hand, if you don’t do it well and patients remain disengaged, they’re likely to find other providers for their healthcare needs—not to mention they might leave you negative reviews, which can damage your practice’s reputation and cause you to lose revenue in the process.
However, there are many benefits of patient engagement that have the potential to affect much more than just your practice. It can also drastically improve the quality of healthcare throughout the country. Plus, poor patient engagement comes at a price—and it can be costly in more ways than one.
Disengaged Patients Lead to Poor Health Outcomes
Patient engagement is a critical factor in achieving positive health outcomes, yet disengaged patients often experience significantly worse health trajectories. When patients skip routine check-ups, ignore preventive screenings, or fail to adhere to treatment plans, the consequences can be severe. This lack of engagement contributes to the progression of chronic conditions, untreated illnesses, and a general decline in overall health.
Patients who forgo preventive screenings miss critical opportunities for early detection of health issues. A recent survey revealed that 77% of Americans avoided an important health screening in the past year—a 20% increase from 2023. The rate was even higher among millennials, with 84% reporting they had delayed a health or wellness screening in the last year. Such delays significantly reduce the likelihood of detecting diseases like cancer or diabetes in their early, more treatable stages.
Medication nonadherence is another alarming aspect of poor engagement. Disengaged patients are less likely to take their prescribed medications as directed, which is particularly concerning for those managing chronic conditions such as diabetes, heart disease, or hypertension. Studies estimate that 40-50% of patients fail to adhere to their medication regimens, leading to at least 100,000 preventable deaths and $100 billion in unnecessary medical costs annually.
Although we’ll address the financial costs of disengaged patients in later sections, the toll is not just monetary. Poor engagement compromises patient lives and undermines the healthcare system’s ability to deliver effective care.
Poor Outcomes Lead to Rising Healthcare Costs
When patients are disengaged, the strain isn’t just felt at the individual level—it impacts the entire healthcare system. Poor health outcomes lead to increased hospitalizations, overburdened emergency departments, and inefficiencies that drive up costs for providers, insurers, and patients alike. In this section, we’ll explore how disengagement ultimately raises the total cost of care for everyone over time.
Hospital Readmissions
Patient disengagement often leads to a rise in hospital admissions and readmissions. Of the roughly 40 million hospital admissions per year in the U.S., up to 36% are estimated to be preventable.
Disengaged patients are more likely to be readmitted due to skipped medications, missed follow-up appointments, or disregarded preventive measures when symptoms temporarily improve. In fact, it’s estimated that 71% of hospital readmissions occur when patients neglect their care plans.
These readmissions come with a hefty price tag. The average cost of a hospital readmission is 12.4% higher than the initial admission—$16,300 compared to $14,500. For patients who cannot afford to be readmitted, their health outcomes often worsen due to negligence, further perpetuating the cycle of poor care and rising costs.
Avoidable Hospital Visits
Chronic conditions like diabetes, hypertension, and asthma require consistent monitoring and care to prevent complications. Without proper engagement, these conditions can worsen over time, leading to preventable hospital visits. For example, 68 million Americans have high blood pressures; 20% of those people are unaware of their condition. If left untreated, high blood pressure can lead to heart attack, heart disease, congestive heart failure, stroke, and other issues that may require hospitalization.
Disengaged patients also tend to rely on emergency rooms for non-urgent care, either because they lack a primary care provider (PCP) or are unsure where to seek appropriate care. This overreliance on emergency departments strains resources, creates backlogs, and reduces overall efficiency. Medical issues that could have been managed through routine visits instead divert critical emergency care resources, leaving the healthcare system struggling to keep up.
Increased Cost of Care
The U.S. healthcare system is the most expensive among developed countries, with annual spending more than double that of Canada or many European nations. In 2022, the U.S. spent approximately $4.5 trillion on healthcare, averaging more than $13,000 per person. By 2028, that number is projected to rise to $6.2 trillion, or $18,000 per person, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).
As providers face rising costs from readmissions and preventable hospital visits, insurers pass these expenses on to patients in the form of higher premiums and deductibles. According to WTW’s Global Medical Trends Survey, 49% of insurers identified members’ poor health habits as a top factor driving rising healthcare costs. Similarly, 47% of insurers cited the underuse of preventive services as a significant cost driver.
Faced with these challenges, patients are beginning to take a more active role in managing their healthcare expenses. A Deloitte survey revealed that the number of consumers seeking cost information has nearly doubled in recent years. Today’s healthcare consumers not only want transparency about treatment costs, but they also expect access to digital and flexible payment options to manage medical bills that exceed their budgets.
Rising Healthcare Costs Perpetuate Systemic Cycles
Rising healthcare costs driven by patient disengagement and poor health outcomes disproportionately impact individuals already facing significant barriers to care. For patients affected by social determinants of health—such as financial instability, lack of insurance, and limited access to transportation—the cost of care often becomes insurmountable. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF), 61% of uninsured adults forgo necessary medical care because of cost.
As healthcare becomes more expensive, these disparities deepen. Patients already struggling to access care are left further behind, while those without such barriers can better navigate and afford the system. This creates a vicious cycle: poor health outcomes lead to higher healthcare costs, which in turn make care less accessible for marginalized groups, perpetuating inequities in health outcomes.
Poor engagement also limits the effectiveness of critical public health initiatives, such as vaccination drives, screenings, and preventive care campaigns. These programs are essential to reducing the burden of preventable diseases, yet disengaged populations are less likely to participate. The result? Preventable outbreaks, advanced stages of untreated diseases, and an increased strain on healthcare systems. In fact, it’s estimated that the United States spends nearly $27 billion treating adults for diseases that could have been prevented with vaccinations.
This cycle not only affects today’s healthcare system but also creates long-term societal consequences. Intergenerational health disparities emerge as children of disengaged parents are more likely to experience delayed or inadequate care themselves. These systemic challenges drive up healthcare costs for everyone while widening the gap between those who can access care and those who cannot. Breaking this cycle requires addressing the root causes of disengagement and prioritizing equitable access to healthcare to create a more sustainable and inclusive system for all.
Breaking the Cycle with Proactive Tools
As we’ve established, the cost of poor patient engagement is deeper than just financial implications. Your patient’s involvement in their care has a domino effect that can cause poor health outcomes, create systemic cycles, and hinder efficiencies across the entire healthcare system. But with the right patient engagement platform and strategies, you can break the cycle. In fact, improved patient engagement is associated with a decreased overall annual cost of care of $1,987 compared with lower activated patients, which is a significant 31% difference.
Modern healthcare consumers want access to digital tools that are convenient, flexible, and user-friendly. To meet this growing demand, healthcare practices need to adapt and engage with patients via familiar communication channels, such as email and text-messaging. With easy access to tools for scheduling appointments, messaging providers, accessing test results, and requesting prescription refills, patients are more likely to take ownership of their care. As a result of proactive patient engagement, the cycle of disengaged patients and increased health costs can be broken.
Learn about 7 Must Have Patient Engagement Solutions every healthcare organization needs to enhance the patient experience and improve healthcare outcomes.
Blog originally published July 2020 and updated December 2024
