Patients today are healthcare consumers, and they prioritize their experience over loyalty to providers. Gone are the days of a family doc for life — with healthcare costs rising, patients want to ensure their money goes toward a provider that meets modern-day expectations. Today, patients are looking for the right mix of quality care, convenience, and communication when establishing a doctor-patient relationship. 

This takeaway stood out repeatedly in our 2025 Patient Perspectives survey. When patients perceive equal experiences of quality care across providers, what makes or breaks loyalty are factors outside of the exam room, like digital convenience, communication, and reputation. 

This shift in patient behaviors comes with high stakes. This year, 65% of patients said they would change doctors for a better overall experience — up from 55% in 2024. 

Independent healthcare practices that don’t adapt to these changing expectations risk losing patients to competitors who prioritize convenience and responsiveness. Read on to discover the data-backed reasons why patients leave their doctors — and why they stay.

The route to winning new patients increasingly begins online. In 2025, 77% of patients read reviews before choosing a healthcare provider, up 10 percentage points from the previous year. 

Today, online reviews rank higher than the following as a deciding factor for patients: 

And individuals are not willing to compromise on their perceptions or those of others when it comes to choosing their next provider. In fact, 69% won’t consider providers with less than a 4-star rating, up from 61% in 2024. And half of the survey respondents will move on after seeing as few as 3 negative reviews. 

Increasingly, this means practices may be losing patients they’ve never even met if their online reputation doesn’t reflect their quality care and patient services. 

To get around this, healthcare practices need proactive reputation management with automated review collection and response. That way, rather than hope patients will leave a review after their visit, you’ll collect a steady stream of relevant reviews on the platforms patients check most: Google, your practice’s website, and platforms like WebMD. 

Perhaps unsurprisingly, today, convenience is as important as medical care. Our survey showed that 65% of patients say they would switch doctors for easier scheduling, messaging, or forms — up 10 percentage points from last year. 

This year’s survey showed that patients are very clear in what they want from their providers:

These preferences cut across age groups, with digitally native younger generations driving even higher expectations for online access. 

Patients see online access and digital convenience as a sign of professionalism and patient-centered care. Practices that implement tools like online booking, automated reminders, and secure messaging not only meet these expectations but align with what patients say matters most. 

Imagine that a patient finally finds a provider they trust. They scoured the web to find the right person and were delighted with their choice after a first visit. 

But subsequent appointments resulted in long waits and misses in communication with the front desk, and they begin to wonder if it's worth the hassle. 

At another office, a patient keeps returning to the same practice because the provider prioritizes patient-centric care and scheduling is effortless. They can tell the practice prioritizes their patient relationship.

Increasingly, these everyday moments shape loyalty and patient satisfaction more than any other factor, and the same factors that can drive loyalty can just as easily destroy it if neglected. 

In 2025, patients stay because of: 

And patients leave their doctor due to: 

Patients want to feel heard — including when they leave reviews. In fact, 70% say a provider’s response to an online review improved their opinion of the practice, and 78% would return after a negative review if their concerns were addressed, up sharply from 64% in 2024.

Ignoring feedback only communicates indifference, while acknowledgment builds trust and strong patient relationships — leading to a healthy continuity of care.

To help providers follow up on patient reviews at scale, Tebra has AI-powered review tools — AI Reviews and AI Insights — that:

Tebra's AI Review Replies detects the sentiment of each review and instantly generates a 100% HIPAA-compliant reply that providers can review and adjust before submitting. 

The Review Insights feature aggregates feedback from Google and other sources and categorizes it by key drivers like wait times, staff, scheduling, communication, and care — eliminating the need to dig through every comment individually.

Patients have expectations for prompt, easy service, while staff are often overwhelmed and understaffed. Burnout among your team makes it less likely that staff are able to meet the expectations of patients. 

At the same time, digital tools make self-service possible — reducing the need for so much staff intervention. 

Our 2025 survey found that 27% of patients say they’re more likely to return if a provider offers a single, easy-to-use system for scheduling, communication, and patient forms. 

By contrast, multiple logins, clunky portals, and siloed systems only frustrate patients and erode confidence. 

The solution is a digital platform that liberates staff from administrative tasks and improves the patients’ experience by giving them agency. Automated scheduling and reminders, digital intake forms, and AI-powered review responses not only meet patients’ expectations but also create a smoother, more consistent experience across every touchpoint. 

The days of having the same doctor for life are no longer, and today’s patient loyalty depends on more than clinical care. Digital convenience, quick communication, and active reputation management are what set winning practices apart in 2025. 

The good news is that independent practices don’t need more staff to deliver on these expectations. They need smarter tools that automate the essentials — and free their teams to focus on patient care. 

Tebra helps practices do exactly that. From online scheduling to AI-powered automated review replies, our platform ensures you can meet rising patients expectations without adding to your workload. 

Download the full 2025 Patient Perspectives Report to see every insight and learn how to keep patients loyal in an increasingly competitive market.

Find answers to common patient experience questions below.

Patients often leave their doctors due to issues with the doctor-patient relationship, such as poor communication, lack of attention, or rudeness. They may also have issues with the practice's administrative staff, or processes such as long wait times or difficulty booking appointments.

The golden rule for doctors is to "do unto others as you would have them do unto you." This means physicians should put themselves in their patients’ shoes and treat them the way they would want to be treated. 

Doctors following the golden rule keep patient needs and dignity at the forefront of their decision-making and interactions, and deliver compassionate, respectful, and person-centered care.

The 4 C's of patient care include First Contact, Comprehensiveness, Coordination, and Continuity — 4 elements considered essential for delivering high-quality, patient-centered primary care.