Why Consumers Struggle to Understand Healthcare

Older patients, caregivers, and family members face growing challenges in understanding and navigating the nation's increasingly complex healthcare system. Consumer illiteracy, long applied to financial matters, also has become an enormous issue in healthcare.

Sophisticated drugs and dosages are more complicated. With many seniors being treated for multiple chronic diseases, there can be dangerous interactive effects of taking medications for these differing problems. Dealing with medical professionals is also often challenging. Consumers don't understand medical language and many healthcare professionals seem incapable of speaking in any other tongue.

The lack of knowledge is described as illiteracy, but that's an unfair knock on consumers. Healthcare is a complex and quickly changing field, and many experts and healthcare professionals are not very good communicators. "Patients are regularly confronted with complicated, confusing forms and instructions," the article said. "As a result, too many people are hospitalized after being given ambiguous instructions about medications or failing to recognize the symptoms of a worsening condition. Effective practices have yet to be developed to assess whether patients properly use medications, complete tests, or receive referrals."