When consumers are required to pay the same out-of-pocket amount for pulmonary services for which clinical benefits depend on patient characteristics, clinical indication, and provider choice, there is an enormous potential for both underutilization and overutilization.
It may be that the formation of more integrated care networks, with less provider choice overall, but with providers that are carefully chosen and better at working together, offers opportunities to improve care and lower costs.
The firm asked about coverage, provider choice, cost, customer service, claims processing and communication.
This is the downside of keeping costs low -- although for many people without insurance, their provider choice is limited to the emergency room.
To the extent the Administration is serious about its guiding principles of competition and provider choice, it must recognize the importance of consolidation.
Ads supposedly sponsored by the Coalition for Medicare Choices started appearing last week warning that seniors will face higher costs, fewer benefits and a loss of provider choice if Congress and the administration don't take action.
For chronic illnesses, cost of care influences provider choice.
Provider choice has been identified as strongly associated with physician trust.
Many managed care plans, including health maintenance organizations (HMOs), have limited provider choice [ 28].
Women's provider choice for curative care, however, was often mediated by considerations of affordability.
In this section we present the detailed results for the health care provider choice models.
