For his own health a person will always find money A lot of institutions and companies, like fitness clubs, private clinics and drugstores, are guided by this principle.
It often happens that people have really bad pains and endure them as long as it’s possible, hoping that the treatment at home will help and it won’t be necessary to go to a doctor. But when we realize that we can’t do without the help of a specialist, appears another dilemma: to go to a state hospital or to a private one. Then we start remembering all the previous experiences we or our acquaintances lived regarding health care.
It happens very often that we prefer private hospitals due to our hopes and expectations, and not for real facts related to the services provided by the institutions. We imagine that in a private health care center we will benefit of advanced equipment, no need to stay in lines, and a proper treatment from doctors and nurses. Besides, the patient is expecting to be diagnosed correctly, and the treatment prescribed to be the most efficient.
Another factor that influences our choice for private hospitals, is the thought that in a private institution the money spent, even if it’s not little, it won’t surpass all the “gifts” and other “financial motivations” that we are expected to pay to the personnel of the state hospital, providing free services.
Based on the Magenta National Screening, the research that was carried on a sample of 1400 respondents from 24 towns (error margin +/-2,6%), revealed the fact that townsmen prefer to go to state hospitals, while private hospitals are chosen by only 14% of the respondents.
Picture 1: The frequency rate of private hospitals, N=1202, %
The most popular private medical centers are the dentistry centers. According to the market research data, dental services of these are requested not only by locals, but also by those people who emigrated in the neighboring countries, or even further. It happens very often, when coming back to visit their relatives, these people that emigrated find some time to go to dentist, knowing that it is much cheaper to cure your teeth in Moldova than abroad. That’s way the dentistry centers registered a higher degree of trust from the respondents: 3.44 from 5 possible. The most popular dentistry center is Caracaş-Dental, gathered 11% of all mentions (the top of the spontaneous brand awareness supposes that the respondents name by themselves the private clinic they know). At the same time, none of the respondents went to this dentistry (according to the clinics frequency rate in this region).
The second place in the popularity top is taken by diagnostic centers. The municipal clinic Magnific is the most known of all - 21% of all mentions. However, the Family Health Center Galaxia is the most frequently visited,in percentage data exceeding even the above mentioned clinic.
Third place, according to the number of records, belongs to the specialized medical centers in urology, gynecology and proctology. The most popular among these is On Clinic, with 43% from mentions.
Still who are those who request the services of private clinics? According to the multicriterial data analysis, the largest share is covered by the men and women of 20-44 years, with higher education and with income above the average.
Sometimes, having the results of the medical tests and following a certain treatment, the patient prefers to solicit the services of another medical center in order to be repeatedly examined, to make sure that the previous diagnosis was correctly established, and the detected disease appeared not due to the exterior symptoms or the high ability to pay of the patient, but because the patient really had this symptoms.
The fact that the clients of private clinics are persons with high incomes is not something that should surprise us. There are very few people that are aware of the contents of the Law on compulsory health insurance, according to which in the list of medical health centers are not included only the state clinics, but also the private ones.
It is very pleasing the fact that nowadays we have the possibility to choose where we want to be treated, and our health does not depend completely on our place of residence or on the family doctor in charge of that region of town. We can address to any of the hospitals or clinics and ask for the complete variety of services that the specialists of the institution can offer, being limited only to the thicknesses of our pockets. We are ready to spend more money, but instead we want to receive quality services according to our expectations. Maybe if there were introduced some standards in this domain, it would become more transparent, and our expectations would become reality.
(Chrysanthemes, Nr. 2 2010)