Online library to help providers talk costs with patients

Tools to help providers talk about the costs of treatment with their patients are available through a new online library from America’s Essential Hospitals.

Modern Healthcare reports that the repository, funded through a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation as part of its Cost Conversation project, is intended to help providers address the topic of costs with their patients in a helpful manner.

While providers haven’t generally been included in such discussions, patients faced by soaring out-of-pocket costs are increasingly seeking to talk about what treatment will cost them with the doctors who prescribe such treatments.

Related: 10 states where consumers are more likely to skip the doctor due to cost

According to Modern Healthcare, a 2017 survey of 2,062 adults found about 70 percent of respondents said they wanted to talk to their physician about prices before undergoing tests or procedures—but just 28 percent said their doctor or another staff member broached the subject.

“Patients want to have these conversations and providers want to have these conversations, but neither party knows how to start the conversation,” says Deborah Roseman, principal project specialist at America’s Essential Hospitals.

Eight organizations were provided with grant money from the foundation to create tools and resources that would provide the best messages and workflows to support cost-of-care conversations. The tools, said the report, range from a pocket card for clinicians to use in screening patients for cost burden to a workflow chart outlining actions providers can take to tackle cost concerns. More tools will be added as they are devised.

According to Roseman, the repository will probably make it easier for clinicians to approach cost discussions, since they will have tools readily available. One complaint of clinicians is that they don’t have enough time with patients, so tools that cut down on the amount of time such discussions take could be more likely to make those cost discussions come about.

Roseman adds, “Having these tools available will actually save time as opposed to stumbling over the conversations and losing time.”

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