The hidden gap in healthcare. Why patients fall out of care before treatment begins.
Receiving the 2026 Hearst Health Prize is an incredible honor for everyone at Steer Health.
We are grateful to Hearst Health and the UCLA Center for SMART Health for recognizing our work. We see this recognition as an opportunity to talk about a problem that deserves far more attention.
Every day, millions of people decide they need medical care. They call a provider, receive a referral, or submit an appointment request. Most expect the next step to be straightforward.
Too often, it is not.
Patients wait on hold, leave a voicemail, or are transferred from one department to another. Referrals sit in queues waiting to be scheduled. Follow-up appointments are delayed because care teams are balancing dozens of competing priorities. These moments rarely seem significant on their own. Together, they create one of healthcare's biggest hidden challenges.
Patients who intended to receive care quietly disappear from the system before treatment even begins.
The hidden gap in healthcare
Healthcare organizations invest enormous effort in delivering high-quality care. They recruit physicians, expand services, improve clinical outcomes, and adopt new technologies. Yet there is another challenge that is often harder to see because it happens before treatment starts.
Research shows that nearly 40 percent of specialist referrals are never completed. Nearly one in five scheduled appointments becomes a no-show.
Behind every statistic is a patient who wanted care but never received it.
Some patients give up after waiting on hold. Others forget to schedule an appointment after receiving a referral. Some never hear back after requesting an appointment online. Others postpone care until the problem becomes more serious.
None of these patients intended to abandon their care journey.
They simply encountered too much friction along the way.
This is the hidden gap in healthcare. It exists between the moment someone decides to seek care and the moment they actually receive it.
Why friction matters
It is easy to think about patient access as an operational challenge. In reality, it affects every part of the healthcare experience.
- When referrals are completed, patients receive treatment sooner.
- When follow-up appointments happen on time, chronic conditions are more likely to remain under control.
- When phone calls are answered quickly, patients are less likely to seek care elsewhere.
For healthcare organizations, these same moments influence continuity of care, patient satisfaction, provider capacity, and financial performance.
Patients experience the problem as delayed care.
Healthcare organizations experience the same problem as demand leakage.
It is the same gap viewed from two different perspectives.
Technology should make healthcare feel simpler
Healthcare has invested heavily in digital transformation over the past decade. Patient portals, scheduling platforms, messaging tools, voice assistants, and AI applications have all improved parts of the patient experience.
At the same time, many organizations now manage a growing collection of disconnected systems.
Each application solves a specific problem. Few connect the entire patient journey.
As a result, staff often spend more time switching between systems, following up manually, and coordinating information across workflows.
Technology should remove complexity instead of adding to it. That belief has shaped how we built Steer Health.
Rather than creating another point solution, we built an AI-native Patient Growth Engine that captures patient demand wherever it begins and helps guide patients through the care continuum. Phone calls, referrals, online requests, follow-ups, clinical workflows, and revenue cycle activities are connected through a shared patient journey instead of operating as separate systems.
The goal is simple: make it easier for patients to receive care while reducing the administrative burden on care teams.
What this award means to us
The Hearst Health Prize recognizes organizations that use innovation to improve health outcomes at scale.
We are deeply honored that Steer Health was selected.
For us, the award is not the finish line.
It is a reminder that one of healthcare's biggest opportunities still lies ahead.
Every patient who successfully completes a referral, schedules an appointment, or stays connected to treatment represents progress. Every piece of friction removed from the care journey helps patients receive the care they were already seeking.
That is the future we believe healthcare should deliver.
We are proud that this work has been recognized. More importantly, we are excited to continue building technology that helps make getting care easier for every patient.