Customer

A customer is an individual or entity that is the recipient of a good or service made available by a supplier or provider, usually in exchange for something of value that is generally but not always monetary in nature. A customer may or may not be the end user of the good or service; for example, a customer may be an intermediary such as a wholesaler or a retailer, which purchases and then resells an item to another individual or entity. In the case of health care, the customer/end user may be a patient, who is the recipient of the services of a physician in exchange for a monetary payment, or a physician, who is the recipient of medical supplies such as hypodermic syringes or gauze for the clinic, also in exchange for financial compensation. Similarly, in the services arena a customer of an HMO or other third-party payer could be a company that participates in its plan. An example of a customer/intermediary might be a pharmaceutical benefits management firm that purchases pharmaceutical drugs from a manufacturer and then resells them to an end user member of a health care plan for which that pharmaceutical benefits management firm has been contracted to provide pharmaceutical drugs by a health insurance organization.

A customer orientation is becoming increasingly critical for success in health care, as in other industries. It costs significantly more to gain a new customer than to retain an existing, loyal, profitable customer. Thus a primary emphasis in both products and services associated with health care firms of all types is being placed on developing long-term relationships with loyal, profitable customers for goods as diverse as medical equipment and supplies, services provided by physician practices to referring physicians, and services provided to individual end users by hospitals, clinics, or private practices.