Your consumer powers when choosing a hospital

From an August posting by at KevinMD.com

The casual attitude people demonstrate when choosing doctors incurs a steep price. Let’s direct our attention to your consumer powers when choosing a hospital.

The imperative ‘caveat emptor’ (let the buyer beware) carries the most consequence when you purchase health care. When it comes to hiring a hospital’s services, it’s more caveat empty than caveat emptor.

 

It’s time to impart the same lessons for hospitals as we did for doctors. All hospitals are not the same. Each is its own unique brand. We, a nation of shoppers, are obsessed with brand names that tout their distinctiveness. In reality, most consumer products in any given category are all but indistinguishable from each other.  We think we can see the smallest pixel a human brain can process on a video display. We taste the figs and peaches in a $9 bottle of wine. We claim the sensory hyper-acuity possessed by dogs, dolphins and nocturnal predators….

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 Resources for comparing hospitals

• Hospital Quality Compare (Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services)- compares quality of care for certain medical conditions at more than 4,200 hospitals. The site also includes a checklist to help you choose a hospital
• Leapfrog Hospital Ratings – information on this site is derived from hospitals’ voluntary submissions of The Leapfrog Hospital Survey. More about the Leapfrog Group at their About Page

 

 

 

Related articles

• Find the Best Hospital with Medicare’s Hospital Compare Tool [Health] (lifehacker.com)
• Smart Consumers Can Improve Health Care Quality. (victimrights.wordpress.com)
• CMS Updates Medicare.gov Portal With Added Searches and Comparison Information (ducknetweb.blogspot.com)
• New Tools And Initiatives Announced By The Centers For Medicare & Medicaid Services (medicalnewstoday.com)