Efforts to empower patients and employers to make better healthcare-related decisions have largely focused on enabling price competition. Recently, the U.S. House of Representatives passed yet another price transparency act aimed at hospitals and pharmacies. And one of us (David) has detailed how policy changes could allow patients and employers to compare clinicians’ prices for standardized bundles of care so patients could better understand exactly what services they would receive for the dollars they spend.
Patients Need a System to Compare Healthcare Quality — Not Just Prices
Three ways employers and governments can help build a more transparent, outcome-driven system.
August 14, 2024
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Summary.
A system for allowing patients and employers in the United States to compare health services on the basis of price would be inadequate. To make such a tool worthwhile, quality comparisons are also essential. This article offers three steps that would put the country on a path to create such a system: 1) incentivizing the adoption of patient-centered quality measures at the condition level, 2) identifying clinicians, such as surgeons, who meet a minimum volume threshold for common procedures, and 3) ensuring the accuracy of clinician directories.