How Are You Treating Gen Z Patients?
I am retired now. I do miss many of the patients and the office I created but it is in great hands now. I also miss my staff (Christine). That being said, difficult patients are what burn us DPC doctors out. At the tip of the spear of this group looks to be Gen Z patients.
A recent article came out called Gen Z increasingly listens to peers over doctors for health advice and it’s pretty eye opening. Some highlights:
- 45% of adults age 18 to 34 said they’ve disregarded their health provider’s guidance in favor of information from a friend or family member in the past year — a 13-point increase from the previous year.
- 38% of young adults said they’ve ignored their provider in favor of advice from social media, a 12-point increase from the year before.
- The vast majority of young adults (82%) still said their individual doctor has influenced their health decisions. But one-third of young adults also reported content creators without medical training have influenced their health decisions.
- Some 45% of young adults say the average person can know as much about health matters as trained doctors, a 7-point increase from 2024 survey data.
- Meanwhile, 61% of U.S. respondents across all age groups said they feel business, government and non-governmental organization actions hurt their ability to get quality health care. Fewer than 40% in the U.S. said they trust the media to accurately report health care information.
- Nearly 60% of young adults say they’ve made at least one health decision they regret based on inaccurate or misleading information.
It looks like you have competition when it comes to treating Gen Z patients. They think doctors are corrupt or not as educated as their peers or influencers. Social media is working as far as brainwashing these people. They don’t trust legacy media and they probably don’t trust you.
So, what are you doing to counter this?
The one weapon you have as a Direct Primary Care doctor is time!
You have time to read and research things more. You have time to talk to these patients and educate them. You can show them where some influencers are idiots or even how some were right. Be honest. Be open to learning. Legacy media is problematic as they tend to just parrot what they are being told to say. Gen Z has some legitimate points here. Acknowledge that.
You can also fight back. Some of you are already doing great social media posts and videos to push back and give another side of the story. I see these videos a lot (Natalie Gentile, Penny Pauley, etc.). Great job.
Please comment below on what you are doing to treat Gen Z patients more effectively. I would love to share this information.
One way to counteract some if this is many times patients would be parroting something about the “latest” research with meds not available or on the market for distribution. Many times new therapies won’t be paid for by their insurance. If I though it was something that could benefit a patient’s conditions, I’d put myself over a barrel to get it approved but that was rare