For several years, there's been a growing transparency in health care regarding charges of diagnostic tests. The belief is that with better cost information, patients make smarter decisions about care, reducing health spending. The physicians are constantly pushing for greater clarity in order to make decisions on their care, knowing how much certain procedures cost at various clinics or hospitals. But what about doctors?
Often, they don't know the prices either. They may order some diagnostic tests which may be expensive due to clinical preference, medical defensiveness, or since the past test results of the patients are not easily available. But along with that, an evidence comes regarding how exactly physicians make decisions based on costs that could affect the quality of care. In order to study this, a group of researchers decided to see whether physician ordering behaviour would…
