Cdhc Is The Newest Health Care Option

Consumer driven health care (CDHC) is a new paradigm for health care delivery

. CDHC basically refers to health plans in which individuals have a personal health account, such as a health savings account (HSA) or a health reimbursement arrangement (HRA), from which they pay medical expenses directly.

The phrase may also be used more broadly to refer to defined contribution health plans, which allow employees to choose among various plans, often with a fixed dollar contribution from an employer. Those who may wish to opt for plans with rich benefits may have to contribute a significant amount of their own money in addition to an employers contribution.

People with personal health accounts have economic incentives to better manage their own care. Having more choices and greater control over ones own health care plan are characteristics of a consumer-driven health care market place.

The reasoning behind this is economic incentives

While consumers are able to manage their own health benefits, they realize there will be economic rewards for making good decisions and economic penalties for making bad ones. These economic incentives make patients more likely to seek information about medical conditions and treatment options, including information about prices and quality.

Patients will respond to these incentives in different ways:

Some will seek information about diseases, treatments and health care providers over the Internet, including comparative information about treatment outcomes of individual health care providers and the fees they charge.

Some may bypass primary care physicians and directly order their own diagnostic tests or seek online consultations.

Others may bypass brand name drugs and obtain less expensive generic substitutes, therapeutic substitutes and over-the-counter drugs.

The Internet has made many people become self-reliant

Today, for example, patients can:

Use the Internet to freely browse medical journals and libraries for information previously available only to professionals

Test children for ear or strep infections at home, using over-the-counter do-it-yourself diagnostic kits

Obtain a battery of more than 50 blood tests for as little as $90 by leaving a blood sample at a commercial testing center

E-mail personal physicians to obtain a diagnosis, rather than making an in-office visit

Use the Internet to have test results evaluated, or obtain a second opinion from a Web-based physician

Shop online for lower-cost prescription drugs or over-the-counter equivalents

Patients no longer have to rely on physicians to answer all of their questions. They can now obtain medical information directly.

by: Peter Poierer

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