June 12, 2026
Why Does One Patient Experience Strategy Fail Half Your Patients?
A single patient experience strategy can only ever please half a provider’s patients at once, because men and women want different things from their care, according to Alchemer’s 2026 Healthcare Experience Report. The feedback technology company found overall satisfaction at 93%, yet that figure hides a divide in what earns trust and what sends people looking for a new doctor.
Nearly half of women said poor communication would cause them to leave a provider, while 48% of men named long wait times as their main reason for switching, Alchemer reported. Women told researchers they value feeling heard, continuity of care and bedside manner. Men leaned toward efficiency, convenience and speed. A provider that solves for only one of those lists is, in effect, ignoring the other half of its patients.
Jared Norris, SVP of Customer Success at Alchemer, said satisfaction scores alone can hide deeper loyalty problems. “Patient experience means different things to different people,” he said, adding that women want stronger communication and relationships, while men signal frustration with friction and delay.
One Number, Two Sets of Needs
Across all respondents, patients ranked feeling listened to and good communication above clinical skill as the top reasons they trust a provider.
Loyalty then forms along different lines: women build it through relationships, continuity and feeling heard, while men build it through efficiency, convenience and smooth visits. A strategy tuned to one of those routes leaves the other group underserved.
To test the survey results, Alchemer studied 763 Google reviews of four large US health systems. Two of them drew steady praise for empathy, attentiveness and patients feeling cared for, themes the company tied to higher ratings. Communication, technology and trust run together throughout healthcare, where wait times, ease of access and care coordination all feed how patients rate their journey.
A Uniform Search Strategy Misses People Too
The same one-size-fits-all problem reaches how patients find a provider in the first place. Men lean on Google search and online reviews, while women turn more often to provider websites and personal referrals.
Reviews carry more weight with men: 76% called them extremely or very influential, against 65% of women. Online opinion already guides many purchase decisions, with UK consumers naming reviews their primary source when buying, so a marketing budget poured into a single channel will reach one group far better than the other.
Women are more likely to leave over communication breakdowns or lost trust, while men more often go because of operational problems such as wait times and insurance disruptions. Technology plays a stronger retention role for men, too. The majority of men said technology improved their healthcare experience, and 70% of men said it helped cut wait times, compared with 60% of women. A provider leaning on tech alone to keep patients risks holding onto the men while letting the women drift away.
The report urges healthcare organisations to stop treating patient experience as a single score. Patients judge care through different lenses, so providers should design experiences that serve both relationship building and operational speed. Teams that personalise engagement, act on feedback in view of patients and remove obstacles across the care journey stand the best chance of keeping people loyal. For organisations chasing retention across both groups, picking the right tools to fight churn is its own challenge.
