title: A preliminary examination of patient loyalty: an application of the customer loyalty classification framework in the health care industry.
abstract: The present article applies the customer loyalty classification framework developed by Dick and Basu (1994) to the health care industry. Based on a two factor classification, consisting of repeat patronage and relative attitude, four categories of patient loyalty are proposed and examined, including true loyalty, latent loyalty, spurious loyalty, and no loyalty. Data is collected and the four patient loyalty categories are profiled and compared on the basis of perceived risk, product class importance, provider decision importance, provider awareness, provider consideration, number of providers visited, and self-reported loyalty.
authors.affiliation: University of Texas at Tyler, School of Business Administration 75701, USA.
authors.forename: R A
authors.initials: RA
authors.lastname: Heiens
authors.forename: L P
authors.initials: LP
authors.lastname: Pleshko
mesh_terms: D001294:Attitude to Health; D002965:Classification; D019538:Health Care Surveys; D008389:Marketing of Health Services; D017060:Patient Satisfaction / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D010817:Physician-Patient Relations; D014481:United States