Help the buyer be aware

We have improved the cost and quality of everything we purchase in our daily life because we the consumer have been able to get the information we need to make the right decisions. Health care should be no different. The dollar in our health care system begins with employers and their employees. Yet these same employers have litlle control over the insurance carriers and others. The only way we can ultimately improve health care delivery is to provide full visibility to the purchaser of what services really cost and what you are getting in return. This information then enables people and companies to make better choices. Today the insurance carriers tell the employers how they are performing!

President Obama calls for increasing competition for the insurance carriers. He is correct .But how we get there is giving more employers more data to hold the insurance companies accountable for what they provide and remove the fox from the hen house.

With this data, the right incentives can be created to engage people as active participants in managing their health and actually measure the results of what is working or not. Today the approaches to wellness, prevention and disease management are gambles where nobody is truly able to measure cost and QUALITY of care.

Guess what? Retailers and others have been this smart for years in managing their core business. Now its time to apply it to health care.

By Sreedhar Potarazu  |  November 4, 2009; 7:48 AM ET
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