This study analyzes residents' healthcare-seeking behavior preferences and their influencing factors, and interprets residents' tendency to maintain existing healthcare choices from the perspective of status quo bias theory, to provide references for optimizing the healthcare-seeking structure and advancing the implementation of the hierarchical diagnosis and treatment policy. A questionnaire survey was conducted among residents in Hefei City, Anhui Province, from November to December 2025 using multi-stage stratified sampling. Results indicate that the mean score of status quo bias was 3.12±0.69. Factors including gender, per capita monthly household income, chronic disease status, annual frequency of healthcare visits, self-perceived severity of illness, regular healthcare institution, and healthcare-seeking inertia significantly influenced status quo bias (P<0.05), with healthcare inertia having the strongest impact (β=0.301). Females, low-income individuals, those with chronic diseases, more frequent annual healthcare visits, self-perceived severe illness, and those seeking care at large hospitals exhibited a stronger tendency to continue using their existing healthcare institutions. These findings suggest that residents' healthcare-seeking behavior preferences exhibit a certain degree of stability, and that status quo bias theory provides a behavioral economics perspective on residents' tendency to maintain existing healthcare choices. Differentiated strategies should be adopted for different population groups, including reducing institutional switching costs, strengthening continuity of care and dual-referral coordination, and improving the accessibility and reliability of primary healthcare services, so as to encourage residents who tend to seek care at higher-level hospitals toward primary care institutions.