Consumer Driven Health Care

Rating systems are one of the most ubiquitous and easiest ways that consumers can understand quality of care, and when the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services created its five-star rating system, health care providers were next in line to get the ranking treatment.

The post-health care reform insurance marketplace is functioning fairly well from a consumer standpoint, according to a Kaiser survey on people who purchased coverage through a PPACA exchange. A large majority of those in ACA-compliant plans rate their overall health insurance coverage as excellent or good.

Predictions about who will purchase coverage through health care reform exchanges might have been incorrect, this study from Truven Health Analytics suggests, finding that enrollees in one state health insurance exchange were older and in poorer health.

Obese kids who remain overweight as adults could cost society a great deal and not only for increased health care needs, a Brookings Institute study says.

Having access to affordable health insurance is no guarantee that a consumer will receive the full benefit of coverage.

New recommended mammogram guidelines are a bad idea.