My colleagues and I have been doing lots of research lately on how physicians and patients discuss out-of-pocket expenses during clinic encounters. One of our recent publications has been getting lots of attention, with this being the latest example. I thought I would share it with you: Recent qualitative findings published in Health Affairs showed that physicians…
Warning: I am not writing about Angelina Jolie. I am not asking whether women like Jolie, with a strong family histories of breast cancer and known genetic mutations, should consider having bilateral mastectomies. Women like Jolie face extremely high lifetime risks of breast cancer, and thus must make difficult decisions about whether to receive prophylactic…
I recently gave a talk about shared decision making at the annual conference for the National Comprehensive Cancer Network. Here is a nice write-up of that talk. For those of you silly enough not to travel to Florida to hear me pontificate! After listening to the treatment alternatives—surveillance, or active treatment with surgery and radiation—a…
I post pretty regularly on out-of-pocket medical expenses, a topic I’ve been conducting research on, and one that will fit centrally into the new book I’m writing. Most often when people think about paying for medical care, they think about medications. But as this figure from the Kaiser Family Foundation shows, don’t forget about the…
With increasing frequency, Americans are purchasing health insurance plans that require high out-of-pocket costs. Chief among those costs are deductibles, the amount of money a person or family must spend out-of-pocket on medical care in a year before their health insurance “kicks in.” As this figure illustrates, from the Kaiser Family Foundation, deductibles have been…
Even before Obamacare became the law of the land, the U.S. health care system was undergoing a dramatic transformation. Millions of people were shifting from generous health insurance plans to consumer-directed ones that pair low monthly premiums with high out-of-pocket costs. This shift has been encouraged by employers, eager to reduce the cost of employee…
One of my favorite radio shows, Marketplace, did a story on our recent study, in which we showed that physicians sometimes miss out on opportunities to help patients lower their out-of-pocket expenses. The piece features a medical student who’s been working with me on this project, Wynn Hunter, who is making his first national public…
Every once in a while, I like to highlight outstanding writing in my blog. I guess that makes up for the writing otherwise expose you to – namely, my own. As I expect most of you know, there’s been a horrible situation in Flint, Michigan recently, with government negligence leading to lead poisoning in the…
Here is a Kaiser Health News/NPR story on our research on healthcare cost conversations in doctor’s offices. Talking about money is never easy. But when doctors are reluctant to talk about medical costs, patients’ health can be undermined. A study published Monday in the journal Health Affairs explores the opportunities that are often missed in the exam room. Patients…
Take 100 Americans who have used medical care this year, find the one who has receive the most medical care, and you have probably accounted for a fifth of all healthcare spending in that group. One person, 20% of spending – that is how skewed healthcare consumption is in this country. Here’s a picture, which…