Consumer involvement won't curb costs: selecting providers

OB/GYN News,  Oct 15, 2003  by Joyce Frieden

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WASHINGT0N -- Consumer involvement in selecting health care providers and services is a good idea, but it's not going to dramatically slow health care costs any time soon, Dr. Peter Kongstvedt said at a conference sponsored by the American Association of Health Plans.

Whatever the solution to rising costs might be, Dr. Kongsrvedt does not see a lot of promise in having patients become more active health care consumers. He cited a 2002 Harris poll showing that only 7% of all adults tried to negotiate prices with their physicians, and only 5% tried to negotiate the price of hospital care. "Is this really what we want people to do?" he said. "I don't think we want [patients] to get into this type of world. Consumers don't have much access to reliable data, and there's not any evidence that they're doing anything with the data that is available."

Costs are continuing to go up at a time when more and more people are losing jobs and health care benefits. "It's still the economy, stupid, and health care costs are only making it worse," said Dr. Kongstvedt, of Cap Gemini Ernst & young, in Vienna, Va.

However, despite its continued cost increases, health care's portion of the gross domestic product has remained relatively flat--staying between 13% and 13.6%--until the last year or two, he noted. "We're able to tolerate that [just] fine, but now we're getting up to 14%-15% and it's starting to hurt again."

Even so, he said, the breaking point has not yet been reached. "How many of you are giving up your 'grande triple half-car half-decal skim no foam latte' because of health care costs? Not me. As long as we can do that, we're not at the breaking point."

However, health care costs are beginning to eat up the actual spending power of employees, which is bad for the economy. And the recent federal tax cut is too small to help offset those costs, he said.

Several factors account for health care cost increases, he said. One is pharmaceutical and hospital outpatient costs, which have been increasing by double digits for 7 years. Another is the cost of defensive medicine. "This is an area where doctors, hospitals, and health plans can and should work together," he said.

COPYRIGHT 2003 International Medical News Group
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