Increasingly, private sector managers and public sector policymakers are relying on market forces to shape the health care system. Examples include high deductible plans, reference pricing programs, value-based insurance designs, and tiered and limited network plans, which motivate patients to consider prices when deciding in whether and where to seek care.
As benefit designs encourage greater shopping, it becomes imperative to better inform patients. To this end, there has been growing interest in decision support tools, including those that support price transparency. Understanding the interaction between benefit design, transparency, and patient engagement will ultimately determine the success of consumer-oriented initiatives.
The Consumer Engagement area focuses on projects related to consumer and patient behavior regarding health and use of health care. Our emphasis so far has been on a number of projects intended to understand how individuals use these tools, to evaluate their impact and to improve their functioning.
Accomplishments and Collaborations
Ongoing Projects
- Impact of Truven Price Transparency on Health Care
- Impact of Castlight Price Transparency Tool in CalPERS
- National Survey of Shopping for Healthcare
- Impact of High Deductible Health Plans on Rates of Use of Elective Orthopedic Surgery Procedures
- Assessing How Provider Networks and Benefit Design Affect Impact of Transparency
- Evaluating the Impact of a Tiered Hospital Network on Costs
Other Activities
- Mehrotra provided significant support for the HHS challenge to create simpler, cleaner, and easier to understand medical bills. http://www.abillyoucanunderstand.com/, HHS Press Release. Recognized as an “Additional Collaborator” and featured under “Relevant Literature”.
Selected Papers and Publications
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Desai S, Hatfield LA, Hicks A, Chernew ME, Mehrotra A. Association between Availability of a Price Transparency Tool and Outpatient Spending. 2016;315(17):1874-1881.
- Coverage by 21 news outlets, including The New York Times and The Washington Post.
- Sinaiko AD, Mehrotra A, Sood N. Cost-Sharing Obligations, High-Deductible Health Plan Growth, and Shopping for Health Care: Enrollees With Skin in the Game. JAMA Intern Med. 2016 Mar 1; 176(3):395-7.