This post is part of our Building Better Healthcare Marketing series.
It takes more than good bedside manner to truly connect with patients. Even during the best visits, there’s a chance your patients are walking away not truly understanding what’s happening or what they should do next. That fundamental disconnect is health literacy, an issue 90% of Americans struggle with. It’s also a problem healthcare marketing is uniquely positioned to solve.
Before we go into the ways healthcare organizations and marketers can help improve health literacy, and in turn, aid financial literacy when seeking care, let’s define what health literacy is and why it continues to be such a barrier.
What is health literacy?
Health literacy is the ability to find, understand, and use information and services to inform health-related decisions. Health literacy doesn’t begin or end in the exam room. It’s shaped by how patients experience information, even before they seek care. Every touchpoint, from your website and marketing campaigns to the patient visit and follow-up communications, either helps patients take action or leaves them with uncertainty.
To understand where gaps happen, it helps to break down the different types of health literacy:
- Personal health literacy applies to how individual people use information to take action for themselves and others, especially family members.
- Organizational health literacy is how healthcare systems, whether that’s a major hospital system or a small independent provider, enable people to make health decisions.
- Digital health literacy puts the lens on how people engage with health information from digital sources.
Your current and future patients aren’t the only ones responsible for being health literate. Arguably, your health system has a higher responsibility to make health information more accessible and easier to act on. When, where, and, most importantly, how you communicate with patients matters.
Are you keeping in touch in the right ways?
Nearly 90% of U.S. adults struggle with health literacy
Strong readers struggle. People with normal healthcare needs struggle. Nearly all American adults struggle to understand some aspect of their health care. It could be the medical terms used to describe what they’re experiencing, or even just how to pay their bill or use insurance.
But it doesn’t end there. When someone is actively looking for healthcare, they face even more challenges:
- Low cognitive bandwidth from stress, pain, or crisis
- Information overload from social media and the internet
- Financial uncertainty about their bill
One quick search returns thousands of results ranging from trustworthy sources to viral claims from online influencers to AI-charged answers. Even with unbridled access to more information than ever before, how do patients know what they can trust? Do they know how or when to take action?
Americans look for medical advice online
According to a November 2025 poll by Gallup, the majority of Americans still rely on medical professionals at their regular practice for advice. But more than half (53%) say they look for information or advice on medical websites with established medical authority.
Smaller groups are turning to non-professional sources. About 20% of people turn to non-medical professionals among their family or friends. Around 16% say they use AI tools or social media for health information and advice. While these groups are small, they can be more vulnerable to viral or unfounded claims. A different study by KFF found that around 55% of adults said they use social media to find health information, and most reported seeing health-related content in the past month.
With all of this competing information out there, what exactly is the role of health systems and healthcare marketers? How can we, as experts in our field, improve health literacy for the patients we serve?
A health literacy action plan for health systems and healthcare marketers
Taking it back to basics can be one of the most effective strategies for improving health literacy across communities. That starts with a more intentional approach to how you communicate, educate, and engage patients at every stage of their healthcare journey.
Recognize the most at-risk patients
Low health literacy rates disproportionately affect older, low-income, and non-English proficient populations. Prepare to communicate with your most vulnerable patients. Doing so will allow you to clearly and effectively communicate with everyone who is or may be in your system’s care without casting anyone aside.
Identify where your patients are
Every patient or prospect you interact with will be in a different part of their healthcare journey. Active patients in MyChart can still fall off without easy ways to schedule an appointment, pay a bill, or even recognize when they need a follow-up. Prospective patients need to recognize you as a trusted resource in the community, somewhere they can turn to for clarity when they’re not sure what’s wrong.
Make a smart channel strategy
Knowing your demographics gives you a better idea of where you can reach them. Already up on billboards or have TV spots in the region? Make sure you’re online, too. Most U.S. adults say they’re likely to look online for answers to a health-related question.10 Being in the search results isn’t your only option, either. Make the most of the patient data you have and get in those inboxes with timely, relevant information about what they’re likely to be experiencing.
Create clear content
Clear, effective communication doesn’t require talking down to patients. Just like your most educated providers would probably benefit from plain language when they’re doing their taxes, your patients need the chance to understand what’s happening and how they can take action. Written, video, podcast, and social media content can put experts in front of the right people at the right times, all while setting healthcare brands up as the clear choice when care is needed. Drop the jargon and give your audience a chance to learn.
Prepare and educate staff
Support staff: Give your office staff, medical assistants, and other support staff relevant materials they can pass along to patients after visits or between check-ups. Materials can be take-home packets, digital assets, or a combination of the two.
Providers: There’s a clear gap in patient and provider communication.Using the “teach-back” method helps bridge it by asking patients to explain, in their own words, what the provider just told them. Rather than leaving confused, patients can be more confident that they understand what’s happening and what they can expect.
Use technology to break down barriers
Information is nothing without action. Patients need to play an active part in their care, but they can’t be expected to navigate the maze without help. Send automated (but relevant and personal) reminders, make portal access easy and encourage signups, set up simple payment and scheduling systems, and offer telehealth options when appropriate. Reducing the friction lets your patients connect with and be mindful of their care instead of being an absent participant.
Recognize digital literacy limits
A digital approach is non-negotiable in effective marketing strategies today, but it can’t be the only piece. Internet access isn’t readily available for everyone who needs care, especially low-income patients, those in rural areas, and older adults. Transform online resources and make them available to those who rely on in-person visits and phone calls for information.
And while improving health literacy helps patients understand their care needs, understanding alone isn’t the only barrier. When decisions about care intersect with fears of cost, they reach a crossroads that can stop them from acting at all.
At a crossroads with financial literacy and affordability
Healthcare affordability and financial literacy are reaching crisis levels — and increasingly, financial fear is determining whether people seek care at all. Nearly the same number of U.S. adults have lost someone to an opioid overdose (32%) and skip health care they need because of cost (36%).
Both insured and uninsured patients report worries about how they will afford the health care they need. In fact, the cost of health care is the top affordability worry, followed by food, utilities, and other household expenses. This isn’t just a financial concern — it’s an access issue. When patients don’t understand what care will cost or whether they can afford it, they delay or avoid care altogether, regardless of clinical need. While insurance does reduce worries around health care costs, it presents more challenges to patients:
- Understanding language: Deductibles, copays, and out-of-pocket maximums only scratch the surface of the dictionary of terms patients need to grasp when understanding their coverage.
- Changing requirements: Renewing or updating insurance plans via Marketplace or employer-sponsored plans often brings new rates, patient responsibility, and even prior authorization requirements for treatment that’s already underway.
- Timelines and billing: Waiting on an EOB adds stress, especially for patients who received a direct bill after services. They may feel like they’re in limbo between devastating financial expectations and full coverage, especially if they don’t know how their benefits will be applied or if their claims were coded properly.
- Denials and appeals: When worst-case scenarios play out, and insurance denies a claim, patients aren’t likely to seek a resolution. Only about 1% of denials are appealed, even though many who do appeal actually succeed.
Insurance alone isn’t the only issue. Nearly 50% of Americans have low financial literacy. Trying to navigate a system that’s medically and financially complex can and often does feel like an exercise in futility. And when that happens, patients don’t just feel overwhelmed — they opt out.
That’s the real issue: financial literacy gaps don’t just create confusion. They create avoidance. And avoidance, in healthcare, is an access problem.
Health literacy is a system challenge, and our role is improving it
The American healthcare system is hard for patients to navigate and is constantly changing. Even when patients clearly understand their needs, they’ll likely struggle to take action.
And when patients don’t take action, the cost falls on their health and the healthcare system. Patients are more likely to put their concerns off until preventive care is no longer effective. They’re more likely to readmit for the same issues. They’re more likely to delay care until an emergency—one they may not be financially prepared for or insured against.
The numbers make it clear: according to Health IQ, lower health literacy correlates with higher Medicare Rx costs, higher rates of high blood pressure, obesity, and diabetes.
The systemic responsibility of health literacy can no longer be borne by public health officials alone, especially in a country where public health care (and coverage) diminishes by the day.
Health literacy is a system challenge, not a patient one. And it’s our role, as health systems and healthcare marketers, to improve upon it so patients understand their needs and can take action to live healthier lives.
