What Is Needed to Rebuild Trust in U.S. Healthcare?

Trust in the U.S. healthcare system is eroding — but this decline isn’t happening evenly across the system, one leader pointed out.

People largely trust individual clinicians, but they tend to distrust payers, drugmakers and hospital leadership, said Kristin Wikelius, chief program officer at the United States of Care , a national health policy advocacy group.

That split in trust becomes particularly apparent when patients move beyond the exam room.

Wikelius noted that people routinely run into contradictory answers about costs and coverage, leaving them feeling like the healthcare’s major institutions are opaque at best and self-interested at worst.

“Say someone needs to have a procedure — then they have to figure out for their insurance. Is this provider in-network? What’s it goi