I am not a big fan of calling patients “customers”.
The word customer is defined as a person who purchases goods or services from another, which means this connection is limited to a pure final transition.
It’s a transactional term used to define a financial relationship, not a human relationship.
Rephrased, if you aren’t buying, or a potential buyer, you are no longer a customer; In fact, you don’t even exist to the other party.
So, consider what this means for a new entrant into the healthcare field such as Amazon, which prides itself on intense customer focus:
“I would define Amazon by our big ideas, which are customer centricity, putting the customer at the center of everything we do.” Jeff Bezos
If and when a customer-centric companies (like Amazon) offer online medical services—perhaps with some super-duper AI-enabled software, and perhaps under the direction of a “provider” ( another word I am not fond of)—and then things get complicated beyond the focused service they offer (such as a presumed bronchitis which turns out to be pneumonia complicated by congestive heart failure) the customer will soon find that most of these customer-centric companies will be looking to send them to a physician, one outside of their organization, to treat them as a patient.
Put another way, companies who call patients customers will be happy taking the uncomplicated low-hanging medical fruit, but as soon as things get medically or financially complicated they will be looking for an exit ramp.
Now, no doubt everything will be legally solid when they take this existing ramp. The bigger the company, the better the lawyers.
But trust me, when a physician physically in the room has a really sick patient in front of them, they are not a customer— they are a person who really needs out help.
A living, breathing person, with family, and obligations, and struggles, who is ill.
Look, calling people customers is fine when buying shoes, or iPads, or internet service. Personally, I’m fine with being treated as a customer when I am ordering a book online, and I sure as heck don’t want or need a compassionate or caring experience when I order it. I just want my book!
But when people are ill, they are vulnerable, and it’s then they need high-quality care mediated by an actual compassionate human—they do not want to be dehumanized.
Let’s be very clear: in healthcare, calling people customers is intended to reduce them to become just part of a financial transaction, which—by definition—dehumanizes them. And if they can do it to them, they can do it to you.