Wednesday, August 30, 2006
USA Today argues for price transparency
[Editorial, "Reveal health care costs," USA Today, 30 August 2006.]
An editorial in today's USA Today draws a link between consumer-driven health care and the move toward price transparency in health care:
No sensible consumers would purchase a new car or refrigerator without knowing the price, or without asking a few questions about reliability.
Yet they'll undergo cardiac surgery or a hip replacement with little thought of the actual cost of treatment, and with virtually no information about their hospital's track record with that procedure.
Traditional insurance, whether government- or employer-based, shields patients from the true costs of care. If someone else is paying most of the bill, patients have little incentive or ability to demand lower prices. Hospitals and doctors face little pressure to publicize their fees or to lower them.
Faced with rising costs, however, employers are pushing workers to shoulder a larger share with higher premiums, deductibles and co-pays. Plans combining low premiums, high deductibles and employee-funded health savings accounts are gaining popularity. Because those plans force people to spend more of their own money, they have more incentive to shop around. But they can't do that without better data.
While hospitals and doctors are dragging their feet, the government and insurers are taking steps to make health care costs more transparent:
• Last week, Bush signed an executive order requiring four federal agencies to compile and release information about the quality and price of health care provided to people they cover.
• In June, Medicare started posting on its website how much it pays for 30 medical procedures in each of the nation's counties, along with data on how many of the treatments each hospital performed last year. In general, the more experience a facility has with a procedure, the better the outcome for the patient, studies show.
• Aetna, which covers 30 million beneficiaries, will make physician-specific information on fees, clinical quality and efficiency available to its members in seven states.
With the right tools, patients can find better values. More honesty about price and quality can lower costs and achieve better outcomes.
[Mary Katherine Stout and Matthew Hisrich, "Price transparency important," The Salina Journal, 12 July 2006.]
An editorial in today's USA Today draws a link between consumer-driven health care and the move toward price transparency in health care:
No sensible consumers would purchase a new car or refrigerator without knowing the price, or without asking a few questions about reliability.
Yet they'll undergo cardiac surgery or a hip replacement with little thought of the actual cost of treatment, and with virtually no information about their hospital's track record with that procedure.
Traditional insurance, whether government- or employer-based, shields patients from the true costs of care. If someone else is paying most of the bill, patients have little incentive or ability to demand lower prices. Hospitals and doctors face little pressure to publicize their fees or to lower them.
Faced with rising costs, however, employers are pushing workers to shoulder a larger share with higher premiums, deductibles and co-pays. Plans combining low premiums, high deductibles and employee-funded health savings accounts are gaining popularity. Because those plans force people to spend more of their own money, they have more incentive to shop around. But they can't do that without better data.
While hospitals and doctors are dragging their feet, the government and insurers are taking steps to make health care costs more transparent:
• Last week, Bush signed an executive order requiring four federal agencies to compile and release information about the quality and price of health care provided to people they cover.
• In June, Medicare started posting on its website how much it pays for 30 medical procedures in each of the nation's counties, along with data on how many of the treatments each hospital performed last year. In general, the more experience a facility has with a procedure, the better the outcome for the patient, studies show.
• Aetna, which covers 30 million beneficiaries, will make physician-specific information on fees, clinical quality and efficiency available to its members in seven states.
With the right tools, patients can find better values. More honesty about price and quality can lower costs and achieve better outcomes.
[Mary Katherine Stout and Matthew Hisrich, "Price transparency important," The Salina Journal, 12 July 2006.]
Comments:
Post a Comment
