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In Focus: Consumers and Healthcare: What's the Prescription?
In Focus:  Consumers and Healthcare: What's the Prescription?
In the last four articles featured in HealthBond's In Focus section, we've discussed consumer viewpoints on healthcare in the United States from a variety of perspectives. We've looked at healthcare and insurance from the point of view of a small businesswoman, an elderly couple, and from the viewpoint of a mid-level manager in Texas. What have been the main points discovered--what's the common bond between these diverse groups of healthcare consumers?

In general, some of the main points in common seem to focus around choice, information availability and how consumers think the healthcare industry, especially insurance companies, look at them as individuals with needs. All of the interviewees noted that they appreciated having more choice in the matter---more say-so--when it comes time to choose their health insurance benefits.

All of them commented on how hard insurance forms and brochures are to understand, and wished for more readable, accessible forms as well as Internet information. The diverse groups of people interviewed also wished costs weren't so high; on the other hand, they said they think they would pay a reasonable amount for quality health coverage.

In today's information-oriented society, it seems as though consumers are on their own when it comes to hunting down and capturing understandable healthcare insurance information. Occasionally, they are lucky to find a billing officer in a doctor's office who has the time to explain the various forms to them, but this is rare.

More and more, consumers are expressing frustration with the way the insurance system works (or fails to work, regrettably). They want more information, more understandable formats, and more access to healthcare information in general. Utilizing the Internet as a resource point or a research tool is high on almost every interviewee's priority list.

Healthcare costs are increasing, while many people are seeing their budgets decrease. This catches small business owners in a bind; they want to offer good benefits to their employees, but have to pick and choose the least expensive types of insurance in order to meet their bottom line.

Employees are in demand right now, and often companies have to use benefits as an additional incentive to employ these people. Companies are stretching their budgets as far as they can go, and sometimes it's not enough.

Retired people are facing some of the same constraints. They live on a fixed income, in a time where prescriptions, medical devices, doctor's visits, and catastrophic illness wreak havoc upon their carefully-stored-away retirement funds.

Elderly people also have more trouble understanding (and reading, for that matter) the fine print in many insurance policies; accessibility is also an issue. Veteran's benefits aren't very beneficial when the distance is too great to travel in order to obtain them. Don't our veterans deserve quality, timely care in a local setting?

The general consumer also has issues--and most of them focus, again, around cost. Prescription medications have hugely inflated prices, and this in turn makes insurance companies raise their rates. This sets up a vicious cycle, and the consumer is caught in the middle.

Alternative healthcare, like therapeutic massage and chiropractic visits, are often not covered by insurance policies, so consumers pay out of pocket for these services. If they can be shown to be effective at maintaining a healthy lifestyle, why shouldn't insurance pay for these services? Do the drug companies have to make quite so much of a profit on their medications, gouging the insurance companies as well as the consumer?

The prices charged are what the market will bear. But the time is coming when consumers, waking up to their new-found strength as a lobbying group and public awareness sector, will challenge some of these problems, and hopefully find ways to decrease some of the excesses currently practiced.

Since the birth of the consumer movement in the mid-1960's, people are becoming more aware that they can make a difference in a larger sense, and now more and more people are starting to ask questions about the costs and benefits of healthcare in the United States today.

Pointing the finger at pharmaceutical companies or insurance companies doesn't solve the problems, nor does it set up a viable community for talking things out. What we need now are solutions, not blaming sessions, and we need to start to work with the consumer as a partner, not as merely a patient or client.

We're consumers, too, as a recent Hosted Forum at HealthBond so ably pointed out. Healthcare professionals don't often see themselves as patients or clients, but we are... and we need to realize there's a need for change. Developing a common ground, a forum, where all these different groups can meet and suggest solutions should be a major public policy goal for healthcare industry leaders and consumer groups alike.

Ignoring something doesn't make it go away. Giving an illness half-treatments, or sporadic "fixes" doesn't cure the problem, either. What we need are more coherent, focused, and process-driven alliances between the various groups--consumers, in all their diversity; medical professionals, in all their diversity; the pharmaceutical industry, who depend on consumers taking their medications, and the insurance business as a whole.

The prescription from the various consumers interviewed by In Focus: listen to us. We have good ideas, and we're willing to share them with you. Costs are too high, choice is limited. The time is now for a change, and a change for the better. We've always been a nation of problem-solvers, so let's work together on this one, and find ways to address the issues in a positive sense. Ideas need to be shared, solutions explored.

Let's cure this malady before it becomes critical.
____________________________________________________________

In Focus for May, Consumers in Healthcare. Previous articles for May.

May 1-7, 2000, Consumers Care!
May 8-12, 2000, Meeting the Bottom Line
May 15- 19, 2000, The Graying of America: Elderly Healthcare Consumers
May 22- 26, 2000, Information Overload: Situation Critical

Anne Marie Talbott, atalbott@healthbond.com

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Member Opinions:
By: tammy on 5/30/00
These are very difficult problems within the healthcare industry. I agree that we must partner with the consumer on these issues. They are part of the process and probably know better than any other entity what might be good solutions.

By: yvette on 5/30/00
You're right. Healthcare professionals don't often see themselves as consumers. And when they do become consumers, it usually changes something in their practice or manner in which they practice. The healthcare industry has been very arrogant and until the last few years has all but ignored the consumer. We are paying dearly for that now, both the consumer and healthcare industry. After all this turmoil evens out, hopefully the result will be a system that can support quality care while serving the needs of consumers.

By: annemarie on 5/30/00
Part of the healthcare business is a business... and if customers don't like what they get from one source, they'll definitely go to another. Healthcare professionals are starting to wake up to that. Time for change...

By: Luke on 5/30/00
I would like to see a time when healthcare revoloves around the consumer, but I don't see that happening anytime soon. Probably not in my life time.

By: Luke on 5/30/00
I agree with Anne, the free market will make this transition happen faster than any other force.

By: annemarie on 5/30/00
I think the healthcare market will start revolving around the consumer when the consumer starts waking up and realizing he or she has the power to influence positive change and renovation within the industry. I'm not talking name-taking or finger-pointing, I'm talking serious commitments to change in a growthful, person-positive way. Finding solutions instead of fixing blame. The situation's too far gone for that to be very helpful; we have to work with what we have now, not remember what we may or may not have had forty years ago.




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