EHRs Show Physicians ‘Real' Cost Of Healthcare
By Katie Wike, contributing writer
The author of a recent study on lab costs in EHRs says the team’s real goal was to educate physicians about the relative costs of the procedures they prescribe
A study linking visible lab costs to physicians’ decisions showed prior knowledge of lab costs through electronic health records led doctors to reconsider ordering some pricy tests that may have been unnecessary. Thomas D. Sequist, MD, MPH, of Atrius Health, the senior author on the study, believes this information enables physicians to manage the cost of care.
“Our primary goal here was actually to educate providers about the relative cost of procedures and tests because we felt like there was this big gap in terms of us as a health system asking providers to take a more active role in being conscious of value in healthcare,” Sequist told EHRIntelligence. “But we do that in the context of not providing physicians with any sense of how much things cost.”
According to Sequist, the problem is deciding which number is the real cost of a procedure. In healthcare when a cost is revealed, which one is it? “What is the number that you display?” Sequist asks. “In all of healthcare when we list the cost, the real question is the cost to whom: the patient, the provider system, or the payer? And if it’s the cost to the payer, which payer is it? If we work with multiple payers, then there will be multiple costs. Research has shown over the years that there is wide variation in pricing in healthcare.”
Often there are multiple payers. And when providers work with multiple payers, there are likely multiple costs. One can see where the difficulty lies in determining cost, not to mention the task of accumulating all the cost data (which constantly changes) and ensuring its accuracy. “One of the worst things you could do in this scenario is to provide incorrect information to the doctor and patient in real time. That is one of the challenges,” Sequist observes.
If this type of cost information could become available and guaranteed accurate, Sequist believes it would improve care and allow personalized care based on a patient’s financial situation. Then patients and their physicians could explore options that fit in a specific price range. “As we move into more consumer transparency, it would be great to give information that says, ‘You’re ordering this MRI based on this patient’s health plan coverage and this is what it’s going to cost the patients.’
“That would be wonderful information at the time of ordering to be able to give to a doctor,” says Sequist. We are not at that point in terms of our ability to do that type of detailed decision analysis, but the movement toward transparency would hopefully take us down that road eventually.”
See the study HERE
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