On June 27, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Health Care Solutions Council released a 55-page, four-part report outlining legislative and regulatory recommendations to improve the health care system. This is the first of a four-part series unpackaging those proposals. Scroll down to find links to the introduction to the Solution Council's report and the other posts featured in the series.
What then is the first step in reforming health care? Give Americans more meaningful and more transparent information about the quality and cost of health care.
Since Time’s Steven Brill exposed enormous varieties in health care pricing, transparency has been a hot topic of discussion recently. Unlike buying a car, a house, or a computer, many American healthcare consumers and employers have little data to go on when shopping for the best value. However, the Solutions Council's report shows that some leading businesses and healthcare providers are changing that.
For example, Boeing works with its providers to increase the availability of information regarding cost and quality on more than 150 common and important medical procedures, which employees can access from their mobile devices. Dow Chemical offers its employees similar tools. Says Solutions Council facilitator Mark McClellan, director of the Brookings Institution’s Engelberg Center for Health Care Reform, “They are combining these meaningful and actionable cost measures with quality measures in a way that is most helpful to patients and employees."
The Solutions Council offers several recommendations for achieving greater transparency throughout the healthcare system, among them:
- Companies should work to develop and promote the use of consistent quality measures, which are outcome-oriented and reflective of patient experience, as part of their payment contracts with plans and providers. He adds that the federal government should avoid mandating cost information disclosures that might not be relevant, or, more importantly, personalized.
- Medicare should provide summary data to facilitate the development of quality measures on providers and treatments. “If a large set of private employers are willing to work together for more meaningful measures of quality, Medicare should too,” according to McClellan.
- The federal government should provide financial support for initiatives that offer consistent quality information on health care providers.
- Employers, the federal government, and others should do more to increase awareness and availability of tools that help people obtain and use meaningful information about the cost of services.
- Identify and promote best practices in helping consumers choose among health plans.
Here are the links to the other posts in the series: