Scope or Scalpel? Patients Say, Cost Matters

Patients routinely choose between health care procedures without knowing how much they cost. At the same time, it would be unthinkable to shop for a car without being able to do a price comparison. Dr. Eric Scaife, pediatric surgeon at Primary Children’s Hospital and associate professor at the University of Utah, took the unorthodox approach of telling patients the cost difference between two equally effective appendectomy procedures. Armed with that information, patient choice changed dramatically. Scaife explains how these results have changed his medical practice, and how cost transparency could alter the American health care system. Read more about the study, published September, 2014, in the Annals of Surgery .