Healthcare Savvy

The following story is by Dr. Robert Fenster, a psychiatry resident based at Brown University in Rhode Island , and a winner of the 2012 Costs of Care Essay Contest.

“I’d really feel better if we got the MRI,” […]

As a presidential election looms and the American economy struggles to recover, the spiraling costs of healthcare have become a contentious political focal point without an obvious solution. Yet for patients and […]

Patients and their caregivers are uniquely positioned to recognize inefficiency in the healthcare system but are seldom empowered with information […]

The following is a cross-post of Dr. Shilpa Iyer’s thoughts at http://www.CostsOfCare.org. Her slides on gynecology clinic costs are linked at the bottom. It all started while out to dinner with a couple of my fellow Brigham/Massachusetts General Hospital OB/Gyn residents. We were discussing our favorite old TV shows and one fellow resident’s love of…[Read more]

Although doctors decide which tests and treatments go on the bill, they often are not in a position to know how their decisions impact what patients pay for care. Two years ago, I founded Costs of Care to change this, and am in the process of collecting stories from care providers and patients all over the country that illustrate [...]

Do you have a story about a medical bill that was higher than you expected it to be? Or a time when you wanted to know how much a medical test or treatment might cost? How about a time you figured out a way to save money while still receiving high-value care? As part of [...]