Study Finds Support for Limiting Health Care Costs
More than half of Northern California participants in a recent study said that establishing cost-effectiveness standards would be an effective method of controlling health care costs, according to a study released this month by Sacramento Healthcare Decisions, the Sacramento Business Journal reports.
For the study, the not-for-profit organization conducted 27 discussion groups with about 300 participants. The goal of the project was to determine whether consumers believe the cost of a treatment can exceed its clinical value and whether society should use such measures to determine what services health plans will cover.
According to the report, 80% of respondents said that cost effectiveness was a necessary consideration in some situations. However, as a matter of general practice:
- 75% said prevention was effective as a means of controlling health care costs;
- 67% said price controls could be enacted on medications and other profit-oriented segments of health care; and
- 56% said considering cost-effectiveness standards was a useful tool in addressing health care costs.