Healthcare is one of the most talked about topics especially recently with Obama care being introduced. Most of us have yet to pay a medical bill but as we are closer to the real world we will be forced to start paying for it .If you were told that if you payed more for healthcare you would receive better quality what would you think? If you couldn’t afford it how would it make you feel to know that the wealthy would be more healthy than you? Most of us probably have never really thought about the link between cost and quality of healthcare. Research was done on whether or not the link existed.
Peter S. Hussey, PhD, from RAND Health, Arlington, Virginia, and colleagues conducted a systematic review of 61 studies and “found inconsistent evidence on both the direction and the magnitude of the association between health care costs and quality,” they write. “To our knowledge, there has been no previous systematic literature review of evidence on the cost–quality association in health care.” (McReady, 2012) The research that was conducted included studies from bibliographies of selected papers, informal searches and consultations with experts. In order to assess the quality measures they used 5 categories such as structure, process, outcome, patient experience, and access. The measures of cost were put into 4 categories such as: accounting cost, charges expenditures, and a “care intensity index.
The results were that there was a link of higher cost and better quality of care. They did 61 studies and of them 21 said that their was a positive link between the two. Also, 18 of those studies showed a negative relationship and 22 showed no relationship at all. So we can assume that it is still somewhat unclear as to whether or not paying more money results in better healthcare. Still, more data is needed to come to this conclusion.
Some advice was given to physicians such as learning more about the cost and price of services that they provide. The article also gives advice to “payers that they should reconsider the extent to which they shift financial risk onto provider organizations, and incentives for quality targets should be offered to promote processes of care that are well supported by evidence.” Lastly, the article states that everyone should participate in monitoring of care processes both spending and clinical, as well as the patient experience and the outcomes that result for them.
Overall, this article was interesting because it allowed us to think of the results we are receiving from healthcare for how much we pay for it. I would be furious if the quality of healthcare was better if I payed more for it. Imagine all the families that can’t afford it, should we just leave them to receive less healthcare treatment? This would be horrible if it was a huge connection between the two.
