Prices And Health Care Quality: Many Consumers Don’t See A Link
A study in the journal Health Affairs found a majority of people don't associate price and quality in health care services.
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Michelle Andrews is a contributing writer and former columnist for KFF Health News. She has been writing about health care for more than 15 years. Her work has appeared frequently in The New York Times, where she wrote the Money and Medicine column and contributed regular news and features. Her work has also been published in Money, Fortune Small Business, National Geographic and Women’s Health magazines, among others. Michelle previously worked as a senior writer at U.S. News & World Report and at SmartMoney magazines. She has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Wisconsin and a master’s in journalism from Columbia University.
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A study in the journal Health Affairs found a majority of people don't associate price and quality in health care services.
As medicine moves to a patient-centered model, doctors and other health providers are slowly adding patients’ self-reports to the other tests and exams they use to determine care.
A recent survey finds that the number of workers who say they would give up some health benefits to get a pay raise has grown from 10 to 20 percent since 2012.
An MIT economist and Harvard oncologist propose offering loans to patients to cover the cost of expensive, curative drugs, financed by private sector investment in loan securities.
Physicians were less likely to use “care management processes” with patients who have depression than with those who had other chronic conditions, the researchers found.
The current guidelines, last updated in 1987, require patients to specify exactly who gets information about their care. But advocates of change say the new rule will fit in better in the era of sharing patient data through electronic medical records.
More Medicare Part D drug plans are requiring coinsurance rather than copayments for more types of medications, making beneficiaries’ costs less predictable.
When people retire from federal government jobs, they can keep their federal plan as primary coverage but may face penalties for late Medicare sign-ups later on.
The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force says there is not enough evidence to know whether vision screening given by primary care doctors benefits patients.
A consumer’s guide to the tax penalties for not having insurance.
New research from the Dartmouth Atlas Project identifies areas where older patients get care that doesn’t meet guidelines or their own goals.
An analysis from the Health Care Cost Institute finds that less than half of health care costs are for services considered “shoppable,” and consumers’ out-of-pocket spending on that is just 7 percent of all spending.
The survey of 93 men, most of whom were sexually active, finds that 42 percent had heard of emergency contraception, or the morning-after pill.
Facilities for delivering babies are costly to run and hard to staff, so some small, rural hospitals are closing them, forcing pregnant women to travel for care.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services says access to special, lower-cost pharmacies has improved for Medicare beneficiaries in urban areas.
Employers, insurers and government health programs such as Medicare and Medicaid are required to send taxpayers a form showing whether they provided health care but the government has pushed back the deadline for the forms.
Many of the hospitals can be found in network on at least one plan, but fewer are participating in more than that, according to the analysis.
The retirement savings are considered income, so an unexpected withdrawal may change the level of premium subsidies for which an individual qualifies.
Primary care doctors can do the initial screening and recommendations for a colonoscopy, the researchers write in JAMA.
Both states are offering “basic health programs” that provide policies to consumers with low monthly premiums and copayments, and low or no deductibles.
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