Continuing from yesterday’s entry in which I address Regina Herzlinger’s article If healthcare were run like retail…, we come to point number 4:
“A national database contains the prices and outcomes for procedures at every hospital and clinic, so consumers can make informed choices.”
I don’t see how a national price list is going to help consumers to make more informed choices. For example, I know the Kelley Blue Book value of a car when I go out to buy it, but I’m still likely to be charged a different price than my neighbor—depending upon my negotiation skills, how incentivized the dealer is to sell that car to me, etc. And that’s with all of the critical information I need to know about that car in the palm of my hand (or at the click of a mouse).
However, such a database does not exist. Even if it did, who would run it? The government? How would this database be adjusted to better reflect the differences across various regions and markets (urban/rural, wealthy/poor, paying/indigent)? Would this database also recognize the imbalance between payments by insurance companies to the hospitals? After all, that’s obviously affected overall healthcare costs in this country, too.
Ed Howe noted in a recent entry that perhaps another semiautonomous board, another administrative level, such as Tom Daschle argued with the Health Care Reserve Board, is necessary. Maybe he’s right.
Herzlinger continues to call patients “consumers.” Patients are not consumers. Let’s picture this for just a moment: An ill patient is told by his physician, “I’m quite sorry, but you have stage 3 cancer and approximately six months to live.” Do we really imagine that patient leaving the doctor’s office to run home, jump on the Internet, and research which oncolytic center will be the cheapest, creating a plusses and minuses document on a legal pad? I hardly think so.
Perhaps there are instances where healthcare could be run like retail, but the previous example isn’t one of them. Let’s restrict the retail healthcare environment that could be subject to consumer behavior to things such as Lasik surgery or vitamins and herbs purchased at GNC. When it comes to critical, urgent, non-elective care, most folks aren’t going to see where they can cut corners on price.
This blog first appeared at Action for Better Healthcare. - Ed.