An Experiment Shows That A Well-Designed Report On Costs And Quality Can Help Consumers Choose High-Value Health Care

TLDR

Health reform advocates aim to provide consumers with comparative cost and resource‑use data to enable selection of high‑value providers, yet communicating such information is difficult because consumers prioritize quality over cost and often view low‑price providers as inferior. This study investigated whether different formats of presenting cost and quality information influence employees’ likelihood of choosing high‑value health‑care options. Using a sample of 1,421 employees, the authors compared several presentation styles that paired cost data with easy‑to‑interpret quality metrics and highlighted high‑value choices. Results showed that many respondents avoided low‑cost providers and associated higher cost with higher quality, but when cost information was coupled with clear quality indicators and high‑value options were emphasized, the likelihood of selecting high‑value providers increased, demonstrating that such reporting formats can help consumers recognize that superior quality does not always mean higher cost.

Abstract

Advocates of health reform continue to pursue policies and tools that will make information about comparative costs and resource use available to consumers. Reformers expect that consumers will use the data to choose high-value providers—those who offer higher quality and lower prices—and thus contribute to the broader goal of controlling national health care spending. However, communicating this information effectively is more challenging than it might first appear. For example, consumers are more interested in the quality of health care than in its cost, and many perceive a low-cost provider to be substandard. In this study of 1,421 employees, we examined how different presentations of information affect the likelihood that consumers will make high-value choices. We found that a substantial minority of the respondents shied away from low-cost providers, and even consumers who pay a larger share of their health care costs themselves were likely to equate high cost with high quality. At the same time, we found that presenting cost data alongside easy-to-interpret quality information and highlighting high-value options improved the likelihood that consumers would choose those options. Reporting strategies that follow such a format will help consumers understand that a doctor who provides higher-quality care than other doctors does not necessarily cost more.