Gourevitch Rebecca A, Desai Sunita, Hicks Andrew L, Hatfield Laura A, Chernew Michael E, Mehrotra Ateev
1 Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.
2 Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, MA, USA.
Inquiry. 2017 Jan 1;54:46958017709104. doi: 10.1177/0046958017709104.
Despite the recent proliferation of price transparency tools, consumer use and awareness of these tools is low. Better strategies to increase the use of price transparency tools are needed. To inform such efforts, we studied who is most likely to use a price transparency tool. We conducted a cross-sectional study of use of the Truven Treatment Cost Calculator among employees at 2 large companies for the 12 months following the introduction of the tool in 2011-2012. We examined frequency of sign-ons and used multivariate logistic regression to identify which demographic and health care factors were associated with greater use of the tool. Among the 70 408 families offered the tool, 7885 (11%) used it at least once and 854 (1%) used it at least 3 times in the study period. Greater use of the tool was associated with younger age, living in a higher income community, and having a higher deductible. Families with moderate annual out-of-pocket medical spending ($1000-$2779) were also more likely to use the tool. Consistent with prior work, we find use of this price transparency tool is low and not sustained over time. Employers and payers need to pursue strategies to increase interest in and engagement with health care price information, particularly among consumers with higher medical spending.
尽管近期价格透明度工具迅速增加，但消费者对这些工具的使用和认知度却很低。我们需要更好的策略来提高价格透明度工具的使用率。为了为这些努力提供参考，我们研究了最有可能使用价格透明度工具的人群。我们对2011 - 2012年引入该工具后的12个月内，两家大公司的员工使用Truven治疗成本计算器的情况进行了横断面研究。我们检查了登录频率，并使用多变量逻辑回归来确定哪些人口统计学和医疗保健因素与该工具的更多使用相关。在提供该工具的70408个家庭中，7885个（11%）在研究期间至少使用过一次，854个（1%）至少使用过3次。更多地使用该工具与年龄较小、生活在高收入社区以及免赔额较高有关。年度自付医疗费用中等（1000 - 2779美元）的家庭也更有可能使用该工具。与之前的研究一致，我们发现这种价格透明度工具的使用率很低，而且随着时间的推移并没有持续下去。雇主和支付方需要采取策略来提高对医疗保健价格信息的兴趣和参与度，特别是在医疗支出较高的消费者中。
