Measuring and Communicating Health Care Value with Charts

These diagrams can inform fact-based discussions between a physician and patient about the benefits and costs associated with alternative treatments when the cost is measured as the fees that will be paid by the patient over the course of the treatment. For example, sexual function may be more important to a younger patient diagnosed with prostate cancer than urinary continence, while an older patient may feel the reverse. The amount that a patient would have to pay out of pocket for each type of treatment is not readily available today throughout the United States, but it soon will be: States are beginning to mandate that insurers offer individual patients information about the prices that they have negotiated with various providers and the portion that a patient would have to pay out of pocket.