The Trouble With Health Care Cost Surveys Is That They Don't Survey Health Care Costs!
Lot's of headlines again this week over the release of another new "survey of employer health care costs". Surveys released in the fall help businesses develop strategies for their year end health plan renewals. Details always include median premium figures for single and family coverage, deductible levels, expected cost increases and on and on.
Here's a request to those who conduct the surveys and those who report on them: Please, please, maybe you should conduct a survey of health care cost increases. As just an example, I'd like to see what a normal pregnancy cost 10 years ago and what it costs today and an explanation for the increases. Or, I'd like to see a figure showing the cost per hospital admission 10 years ago and the same figure for today. Instead of surveying the cost of providing employee benefits, wouldn't it be more enlightening to shed a little light on the cost of care?
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As I turned the pages of my paper reading about this survey, I couldn't help notice the number (and size) of ads from hospitals and clinics and physicians extolling the wonders of their services. Try as I might, I couldn't find a single figure on the cost of those services. Now, do you suppose there just might be a connection between the survey results of employer's health benefit costs and these ads for health care? I'm not suggesting that advertising health care is a bad idea but maybe we ought to demand to know the cost!! (And yes, something about quality and outcomes would be nice, too.)
Labels: Shopping for Health Care
posted by Jon Rauser @ 4:31 PM
1 Comments
As President & Owner of a successful health insurance brokerage in downtown Milwaukee - 
1 Comments:
Jon,
Your comments are the first sane discussion of the results I've read today- THANK YOU.
You're right providers love to advertise, but rarely share cost or quality information. There is an exception- Smart Choice MRI-
To be fair I'm one of the owners- I'm proud to tell everyone that we charge $600 for every scan, and that it will never cost more. I'm also proud that we offer excellent quality, and exceptional serivce, but enough of a plug for us.
Consumer driven healthcare only works when consumers know what things cost and about quality. Complaining about premiums is a waste of time. Premiums are a reflection of what providers charge. There are local providers that charge 10 times more than we do and are offering the exact same product! So long as consumers are willing to pay 10 times more, premiums will be high, and if our competition can get 10 times more you can bet they'll try to get 15 times more soon.
It's time for consumers to demand value and to ask- "How much will that cost?" and then to do a little research and see if they can't get the same thing for less.
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