To be more than a transfer of risk from employer to employee, high-deductible “consumer-directed” health plans must be augmented by efforts to provide consumers with more information, Aetna chief executive officer Jack Rowe says in an interview. Rowe highlights one of his company’s efforts to provide this information: a Cincinnati-area pilot project in which Aetna is listing the rates primary care physicians charge for particular office procedures. Rowe’s wide-ranging discussion with economist James C. Robinson University of California, Berkeley, was published December 13 on Health Affairs‘ Web site.
http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/content/abstract/hlthaff.w5.583v1
