Doctors, patients want data on cost, quality, study finds

Consumers and doctors are hungry for information that will enable them to compare the cost and quality of different healthcare providers, according to a study by Harvard Pilgrim HealthCare, the not-for-profit health insurer in Wellesley.

The survey found that both patients and doctors would use information on cost and quality to make better healthcare decisions.

The study isn't particularly large or rigorous. But it appears to reinforce the argument that more information about the costs and relative merits of different healthcare providers will result in more discerning purchasing decisions by patients, ultimately lowering the costs of providing care. Harvard Pilgrim chief executive Charles Baker has long argued that lack of such information leads to skewed consumption of healthcare and inflated expenses.

''We were curious to know if people had access to this information, if it would matter to them," said Baker. ''People have a pretty good idea of where to go to get data on cost and quality about just about everything, except healthcare. Our survey found an appetite that's far bigger then we expected."

The study interviewed 111 primary care physicians in Massachusetts and 310 Massachusetts adults with health insurance, of which about 10 percent were Harvard Pilgrim members. Among the findings:

86 percent of consumers said they would be likely to ask their doctor to change hospitals for one that offers better-quality care at a lower cost for a routine surgery, like a knee replacement.

About half of patients whose first choice is a teaching hospital would be willing to consider changing facilities if they had cost and quality data.

The increasing focus on healthcare data comes as more health insurers, including Harvard Pilgrim, offer plans under which consumers pay high deductibles or co-pays and the amount they pay for drugs or hospital treatment varies with their choice. Industry officials call the plans ''consumer-driven healthcare," since the higher out-of-pocket expenses create an incentive for patients to make active choices about care in an effort to minimize their payments.

Some critics calls the newer schemes little more than a cost-shifting tactic that makes consumers shoulder more of the growing costs of healthcare.

''This study makes me feel a little, but not a lot, more optimistic that this approach will work as it's supposed to," said Paul B. Ginsberg, president of the Center for Studying Health System Change, a nonpartisan research organization in Washington. ''These results suggest consumers are talking the talk, but it's uncertain if they'll walk the walk."

The Romney administration is kicking off a first-in-the-state website that will provide cost and quality data on individual hospitals. The effort, debuting today, is part of Governor Mitt Romney's healthcare overhaul intended to reduce the number of uninsured in Massachusetts.

The website, maintained by the Executive Office of Health and Human Services, rates hospitals according to the cost and outcomes of certain procedures. The office plans to add information, including statistics on more treatments and different types of healthcare providers, such as physicians' groups and pharmacies.

''We want consumers to start becoming educated around the cost and quality around providers," said Amy M. Lischko, director of healthcare policy at the Executive Office of Health and Human Services.

Using tools like the new website, ''people should be choosing the most cost-effective options for their care if the quality is the same," she said.

Today, the website will feature hospital data from 2003. It will be updated to 2004 data in January. The rankings will show relative costs using symbols -- like a restaurant guide, a single dollar sign will mean least expensive and three dollar signs will mean most expensive. The site can be found at www.mass.gov/healthcareqc.

Harvard Pilgrim is the second-largest of the state's three big nonprofit health insurers, with about 786,000 members in Massachusetts, Maine, and New Hampshire.

Jeffrey Krasner can be reached at krasner@globe.com.