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The Transparency Pay-Off: How to Create Active Healthcare Consumers
By Christine Muldoon, WebMD HEALTH SERVICES
The widely accepted way to help consumers make better healthcare choices is to provide them with comparative cost and quality information for hospitals and physicians. But simply providing this information is not enough to get people to use it. While consumers are demanding access to this information, it’s not as straightforward to select a surgeon online as it is to comparison shop for a flat-panel TV. Consumers must be actively engaged in the process of becoming better healthcare consumers in order for transparency initiatives to pay off.
Transparency is part of an ongoing health management process
Consumers want to save money on their healthcare. In a recent survey1, the majority (73%) of Americans indicated that they are willing to change their health behavior if they could save money, even as little as $100 per month (one-fifth of the population). The median savings expressed by those who are willing to change their health behaviors is $350 per month or roughly equivalent to the average U.S. monthly car payment.
At WebMD, we see transparency as part of our overall approach to health management. This approach focuses on engaging and activating each consumer so they can “own” their health. We consistently deliver personalized, relevant health and related financial information to every consumer based on their unique preferences. In the process, they are guided to additional resources that are timely and useful, and allow them to make appropriate healthcare changes that can save them money. Making informed healthcare decisions becomes a natural part of these consumers’ everyday lives. Transparency becomes not a one-time solution but a way that they can stay healthier and make better, more cost-effective decisions for a lifetime.
What an active healthcare consumer looks like
First and foremost, an active healthcare consumer understands her health status. For WebMD customers, this is typically achieved by having employees or health plan members complete an in-depth health risk assessment (HRA). The HRA identifies an individual’s risks and conditions and allows her to choose areas of interest or concern.
Based on these choices, she receives regular information on ways to improve her health as well as treatment options that she can discuss with her provider. She can make informed health plan choices based on her actual and likely health situation. And when she needs care, she knows exactly where to go to find cost and quality information so she can compare her options, weighing them against her own health plan, financial situation, and personal expectations.
This active healthcare consumer understands transparency is an integral, vital part of how she makes important, personal decisions that have broad ramifications.
How to create active healthcare consumers
- Make sure the information comes from a trusted source. WebMD is one of the most trusted and highly trafficked online sites for health information. Employers and health plans can leverage that trust to encourage greater activation and use of online resources, including cost and quality information.
- Use ongoing, personalized communications to keep health information top-of-mind and relevant. Consumers want information that they have requested and that meets their specific needs. Transparency information must be delivered to consumers when and how they need it, within the context of their decision-making process. The WebMD Insight EngineSM powers personalized communication to consumers, and helps guide them through healthcare decisions by providing the appropriate resources and services.
- Provide appropriate incentives to encourage consumers to use cost and quality information. In a report released by the Center for Studying Health System Change (HSC)2 , researcher Ann Tynan M.P.H. said, “None of the health plans we interviewed believed that price and quality information is being used extensively by their enrollees today, in part, because few have incentives in their benefit structures to encourage cost comparisons.” The WebMD Health & Benefits ManagerSM system supports integrated incentive programs that reward consumers for desired activities such as using healthcare decision-support applications.
- Expand transparency beyond inpatient care. Outpatient costs make up about 30% of healthcare costs and are rising at 12% to 14% per year3. WebMD Hospital AdvisorSM provides a single user interface that lets consumers easily compare costs of local facilities for a diagnostic test and for inpatient and outpatient procedures so they can choose the facility that is right for their circumstances.
- Personalize transparency information. Healthcare is not one-size-fits-all. Telling patients what a hospital charges for hip replacement surgery doesn't let them know what they will have to pay out-of-pocket. Transparency success requires an increase in the accuracy and specificity of cost estimates. WebMD Treatment Cost AdvisorSM provides cost information down to each member’s benefit plan details. In a few simple clicks, a member can see what his out-of-pocket costs will be for hip replacement surgery based on his PPO benefits and the fact that he has not yet met the deductible. Additionally, the individual can see the type of services that he can expect to be associated with this procedure.
- Make the shift from consumer information to consumer activation. The goal of healthcare transparency is to provide consumers with useful comparative information, not just raw data. This information is complex and can be difficult for consumers to understand. Costs vary from patient to patient, depending on their benefits, provider, severity level, and other factors. And consumers need to be educated so they don’t assume price is a proxy for quality in healthcare. It is essential that we take transparency to the next level – from information to activation. It is our responsibility to provide consumers with context that helps them weigh cost and quality information and understand how to use it.
The WebMD approach to transparency
At WebMD, we believe that healthcare cost and quality information must be provided to consumers in ways that support their processes of researching options. It must be delivered at the right time and in the right place so it’s top-of-mind as they make important and often emotional decisions. And it needs to be accurate and relevant to each person’s needs so that it is directly applicable to their specific situation.
As we meet these ambitious goals, we create active healthcare consumers who will make transparency efforts pay off in the form of better outcomes and lower costs.
Contact your WebMD account manager to see how we can help you empower more active healthcare consumers with transparency solutions.
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