Expert: Health Care Cost, Quality Not Linked
One of the reasons the White House chose to hold Thursday's health care meeting in Green Bay, Wis., is that the area seems to do a comparatively good job of managing health care costs.
Some of the research the administration is relying on comes from the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice. Elliot Fisher, director for population health and policy at the institute, says there is little to link the overall quality of care to the overall cost of care.
"One of the biggest differences between high-cost regions and low-costs regions is in the proportion of patients seeing 10 or more different physicians during a particular bout of illness," he says. "And in Green Bay, the average patient with a serious illness will be half as likely to have 10 or more different physicians involved in their care."
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