Avalere Health, LLC

Even as health care costs are increasingly shifted onto consumers, price information remains largely opaque.

Many people are unaware that quality information currently exists to support their information needs and decision-making, and the use of price and quality websites and tools is low. One way to expand this knowledge is to equip doctors and their staff members with the tools and skills needed to discuss prices with patients, or at least refer patients to reliable sources of price information. In 2018, NYHealth launched the “Connecting Consumers to Information” initiative to put price and quality tools into the hands of primary care physicians and office staff and encourage their use among patients. Through this initiative, the New York Academy of Family Physicians and the New York Chapter, American College of Physicians helped their members hold these conversations with their patients and connect them to resources. NYHealth awarded Avalere Health a grant to provide counsel to these organizations and help them prepare for the launch of Connecting Consumers to Information. In 2019, NYHealth awarded Avalere Health a second grant to provide ongoing guidance and technical assistance to the member networks participating in this initiative.

Under this grant, Avalere Health continued to provide the member networks with counsel and expertise on how to engage patients in conversations about cost and quality choices. Specifically, Avalere Health monitored and assessed the needs of the member networks and created educational resources in English and Spanish that can be used by primary care practices to facilitate the uptake of cost and quality tools by patients. Avalere gathered ongoing feedback from the member networks, and developed a curriculum for providers to have cost-of-care conversations with patients. Finally, Avalere synthesized lessons learned from the member networks’ efforts into a report with recommendations for similar cost and quality initiatives in the future.

Read the report “Key Learnings: Training and Real-World Experience Drives Improvement in Physician-Patient Cost-of-Care Conversations.”