What if Empowering Patients Increases Imaging Use?
Health policy experts understand that reducing waste and overutilization of health care is critical in making our health care system sustainable. They also understand that to do this ethically, patients must be part of the process.
Informed patients who can work together with their doctors to make smart decisions about their care and avoid costly tests and procedures that will not help them get better is the goal behind efforts like Choosing Wisely. However, as patients are empowered with more information about their health and the medical options open to them, assuming that they will always opt
From Dr. Hsiao, With Irony and Courage
The discussion around health care reform reached a milestone worth noting last week with the publication of an article in the New England Journal of Medicine from William Hsiao, PhD, architect of the resource-based relative value unit scale. In “State-based, Single-payer Health Care—A Solution for the United States?”, Hsiao describes how he and colleagues from Harvard retained by the state of Vermont came to recommend a single-payor system for that state. It is somewhat ironic that Hsiao would be advocating a system that spells the end of the carefully crafted underpinnings of the fee-for-service payment system
