Opinion: Ease financial toxicity by putting electronic medical records to work
When I walked into the exam room, Jack started waving a bill at me. “You cost me $1,500!” he almost shouted. “Why didn’t you warn me about the price of that visit?”
When Jack called a few weeks earlier, I hadn’t been able to tell over the phone if he had pneumonia, the flu, or bronchitis, so I asked Jack, a retired medical colleague of mine, to come in to the office. As our health system’s finance office later explained to me, Jack’s new coverage was a high-deductible plan, and he had never before received a bill. My apologies and explanations were feckless. Jack observed ruefully, “I recovered from the bronchitis, but not from that bill.”
I was reminded of this costly experience as I sat through a presentation of the “transparency plan” that my employer, Massachusetts General Hospital, was rolling out at the behest of its parent organization, Partners HealthCare. This marketing campaign involved posting and publicizing patient satisfaction ratings for each physician, when making decisions about their health care.
