Patients Starved for Data

New Study Shows Patients Want Data on Cost and Quality of Care.

A study by non-for-profit Harvard Pilgram Healthcare shows what we've been saying all along; people do not have access to the kind of information that would make a healthcare market work more like a free market.

The study showed that both doctors and patients would use better information about costs and outcomes to make healthcare decisions.

In a free market, customers know the price of the goods they are getting, and also have a good idea of the quality of the product. In healthcare, prices and quality are normally closely guarded secrets.

Providers may not have the data, and have only powerful incentives to avoid getting it. A public showing of poor quality care would mean more than mere loss of business. Providers fear patients and lawyers would seize on data showing poor quality as an excuse to sue for malpractice.

Cost data is notoriously hard to come by. Providers and insurers like to play guessing games with each other. Providers fear actual data on real costs would be a tool in the hands of insurers used to hold down profits; insurers won't reveal compensation rates for fear providers will cut a better deal somewhere else.

This is not what Adam Smith had in mind.

The study was reported in the Boston Globe.