Californians Report Good Quality of Care, Easy Access to Care

Many Californians expressed that their quality of care and care access overall was good, but accessing a diverse healthcare workforce remains a challenge, according to a survey conducted on behalf of Blue Shield of California.

“We see some positive news in the poll data, but we also see opportunities for improvement for our healthcare system,” Peter Long, executive vice president of Strategy and Health Solutions at Blue Shield of California, said in the press release. 

The Harris Poll conducted the survey online from February 9 to February 21, 2022. Over 1,000 California adults responded. The respondent pool did not consist solely Blue Shield of California members, but rather it included uninsured Californians, Medicaid beneficiaries, self-insured individuals, and others.

The survey found that 86 percent of Californians rated their quality of care as “good,” including 88 percent of Black respondents, 80 percent of Hispanic respondents, and 81 percent of individuals with incomes of less than $75,000. In contrast, 80 percent of Californians said that they received good quality of care in 2021.

Health equity in the state may have improved within the last year, based on an increase in positive quality of care among minority groups. 

In 2021, nearly three out of ten Black respondents stated that they experienced poor quality of care, but in 2022 that share was more than halved to 12 percent. The Hispanic population also saw a downward trend, dropping from 28 percent of the community experiencing poor quality of care to 20 percent experiencing low-quality care.

Additionally, 22 percent of respondents with incomes under $75,000 stated that they had low quality of care in 2021, but in 2022 that number decreased to 19 percent.

In addition to experiencing high-quality care, 59 percent of respondents indicated that they had easy access to care, up from 56 percent the previous year. 

White respondents, those with incomes of $75,000 and higher, and individuals who were in the Boomer generation—58 years old and older— were especially likely to have easy access to care. But other groups saw positive trends in access to care.

In the Hispanic community, 51 percent of respondents reported having easy access to care, compared to 45 percent in 2021. In the Black community, 60 percent of individuals had easy access to care, whereas 47 percent of Black individuals had easy access in 2021. 

Low-income individuals likewise saw an increase in widespread access to care as well, from 45 percent in 2021 to 49 percent sharing that they had easy access to care in 2022.

However, the Asian population may have experienced slightly less ease of access in 2022 than this community did in 2021. While 61 percent of Asian respondents said that they had easy access to care in 2021, 58 percent could say the same in 2022. But at the same time, the number of respondents who described their access to care as “difficult” also dropped, from 18 percent to 12 percent.

The coronavirus pandemic continues to inhibit access to care for low-income individuals, undocumented immigrants, and the unemployed.

The share of individuals who have delayed care since the beginning of the pandemic fell overall from 40 percent in 2021 to 34 percent in 2022. However, for Gen Z respondents, the share that delayed care since the start of the pandemic rose from 37 percent in 2021 to 48 percent in 2022. Younger generations tend to navigate healthcare differently than older generations.

The survey also found that finding a provider of the same race or ethnicity was more important to racial minorities than to White respondents and that finding a provider of the same gender was more important to women respondents than to men. Additionally, finding someone of the same gender was more important to respondents who were in a racial minority than to White respondents.

Half of all African American respondents, four out of ten Hispanic individuals, and more than three in ten Asian American participants said that finding a provider of the same race or ethnicity was not easy.

In the press release, Long explained that results like these provided the motivation behind the Health Reimagined initiative as well as the company’s support for the state’s coronavirus vaccine efforts.

“We are committed to helping improve health care access, lower costs, and accelerate the digital transformation that is needed to create a healthcare system worthy of our family and friends that’s sustainably affordable,” Long shared.