Employers Say Hospitals, Doctors, Holding Back

March 16, 2007 (PLANSPONSOR.com) - Large employers are working toward achieving transparency in health-care pricing, quality of care, and efficiency, but want doctors and hospitals to move ahead more quickly on that front.

That was among the findings of a new survey by the National Business Group on Health (NBGH) and Mercer Health & Benefits LLC, which also noted that nearly half (44%) of the 120 survey respondents said that the current ability to measure provider performance is adequate and measurement s hould begin now (30% say provider performance cannot yet be adequately measured; 26% don’t know). About half about half (56) of the survey respondents had 20,000 or more employees.

Information Sharing

Most respondents believe that resistance from physicians (82%) and hospitals (77%) is one of the most significant barriers to provider performance measure ment efforts. Nearly a third (29%) currently make some provider quality/cost information available to members, and nearly half (47%) believe this has resulted in improvements in quality/cost.

Most respondents believe that resistance from physicians (82%) and hospitals (77%) is one of the most significant barriers to provider performance measurement efforts; far fewer are concerned about resistance from health plans (36%) or about cost (40%).

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