Letter: Patients need cost information
A doctor draws medicine into a syringe during a kidney transplant at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland. Credit: Getty Images, 2012
Health care costs are out of control because the people who decide the spending are ill-informed.
Who decides? Ultimately it's the patient's right to accept or to decline treatment. However, many patients defer to their physicians. Costs seem to be a mystery to everyone, patients and providers alike.
Patients only learn about the costs after they receive an explanation of benefits statement. Providers charge various rates depending on the terms they negotiate with insurance plans.
As a result, many of the consumers and providers are clueless about costs. How can anyone make a rational decision under these circumstances?
Shouldn't patients and health care providers have information about the costs before they decide to undergo treatment? If an 80-year-old patient knew that the treatment could cost $170,000, would be extremely painful, and only promise to extend life by six weeks, would he or she still agree to the treatment? Perhaps not.
Brad Lane, Bedford
