Who picks the hospital: practitioner or patient?

This article presents the findings of a survey on consumer versus physician selection of a hospital. Forty-one percent of respondents reported that they or the affected household member selected the hospital. In addition, the perception of who chose the hospital was related to: 1) demographic (age and marital status); sociocultural (number of times moved in the past five years), and psychological (willingness to change physicians) factors which predispose hospital selection; 2) differences in individual resources (type of insurance coverage) which influence decision making; and 3) medical conditions (inpatient vs. outpatient status and the reason for the hospital utilization) which imply specific needs. Knowledge of these factors permits the correct classification of 70.2% of the cases, as opposed to 59.5% without such knowledge. The implications of these findings for healthcare marketing are discussed.