PREPARED PATIENT BLOG

Patients and experts explore what it takes to find good health care and make the most of it.

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What's Engagement Now? Expert Patricia Barrett Discusses Emerging Challenges

Patricia Barrett | February 29, 2012
One way NCQA looks at patient engagement is in the choice arena, by helping people pick who they'll get their care from. We provide information for people and purchasers to use to make choices about individual clinicians, practices and health plans, for example, based on objective ratings.

Guest Blog: Costs of Care...and Coercion?

John Schumann | February 28, 2012
Nora, a third year medical student, came to me in moral distress. Ms. DiFazio, one of the hospitalized patients on her Internal Medicine rotation, was frightened to undergo an invasive (and expensive) medical procedure: cardiac catheterization.

The Clinician's Role in Patient Engagement

Inside Health Care | February 27, 2012
This week, three health care insiders highlight the role physicians play in promoting patient engagement.

The Unanticipated Price of Successful Cancer Treatment: Appropriate Health Care for Survivors

Jessie Gruman | February 22, 2012
The day I completed treatment for Hodgkin Disease in 1974, my oncologist shook my hand, wished me luck and said good-bye. 'But how will I know if the cancer comes back? I asked.

The Government Meets the Jolly Green Giant

Trudy Lieberman | February 21, 2012
Labels describing key features of health insurance policies will become a reality this fall fulfilling a provision of the health reform law that called for more disclosure and transparency. The idea was to copy the labeling for food products'

What's Engagement Now? Expert Douglas Kamerow Discusses Emerging Challenges

Douglas Kamerow | February 15, 2012
Three of the things that optimal patient engagement depends on are TIME, TOOLS and TEMPERAMENT. Clinicians and patients experience each of these differently, but they are central to us working together to get the best possible outcomes.

Health Care's Curtain of Secrecy

Trudy Lieberman | February 14, 2012
I'm skeptical that price transparency about health services will make the health care market more competitive, more honest, or less dysfunctional. After all, health care simply does not work like other markets.

Diabetes: 'Valuable Truths about Food and Consequences'

Conversation Continues | February 13, 2012
From celebrity chefs, to health news journalists, to the National Institutes of Health ' people are talking about the increasing rate of diabetes, what causes it, and what to do about it.

Prepared Patient: Young Adults Taking the Health Care Reins (Updated Version)

Health Behavior News Service | February 9, 2012
Your parents still might be willing to do your laundry, but if you're over 18, they can't make your medical decisions. Are you ready to navigate the adult health care system? This updated Prepared Patient feature offers advice for young people who are just starting out in managing their health care, including information on important provisions from the Affordable Care Act.

'Patient Engagement!' Our Skin is in the Game

Jessie Gruman | February 8, 2012
The idea that we should actively participate in our health care now attracts attention akin to the discovery of a cure for the common cold.

What Consumers Don't Know About Their Health Insurance

Trudy Lieberman | February 7, 2012
On a chilly New York day, a sales agent for UnitedHealthcare stood on a noisy street corner in Spanish Harlem pushing Medicare Advantage (MA) plans. He was engaging in table marketing a way to snag new customers, converts from other MA plans, he hoped.

Quality Care is Compassionate Care

Patient Perspectives | February 6, 2012
The experience of quality health care may vary from person to person, but in this patient blog roundup, it's clear that true quality considers a person's emotional well-being and their unique circumstances.

We Are All Health Illiterates: Navigating the Health System in a Sea of Paper and Financial Haze

Jane Sarasohn Kahn | February 2, 2012
Health literacy isn't just about understanding clinical directions for self-care, such as how to take medications prescribed by a doctor, or how to change a bandage and clean an infected area. It's also about how to effectively navigate one's health system'and that skill is in short-supply'

Tweetchat with Jessie Gruman Today at 2PM on Overtesting and Overtreating in Health Care

CFAH Staff | February 1, 2012
Join @jessiegruman, Otis Brawley MD, Executive VP of ACS and other experts on Twitter today at 2PM with ABC's @DrRichardBesser for a Tweetchat about overtesting and overtreating in health care. Use hash tag #abcdrbchat.

What's Engagement Now? Expert Carol Cronin Discusses Emerging Challenges

Carol Cronin | February 1, 2012
Most people still assume that they don't need to worry about the quality of the care they receive, whether it is from a doctor, in a hospital or in a nursing home. It's pretty frightening to realize that you do have to care about it, because it means you have to assume the burden. If quality does vary, you have to do the research. This is hard to deal with when you are upset.

Resources to help people find good care and make the most of it.