Finding good information about doctors still can be challenging—never mind costs.

Some companies, this New York Times story says, see an opportunity to bring some light onto the dark, complicated corners of health care costs.

Assuming health care reform survives court challenges, the drive to provide that information will grow because more people will be insured. More people will be asking questions about their high-deductible health plans, too, reform or no reform.

In fairness, hospitals each have their own cost structure, based on 30-year-bonds sold and other institutional uniqueness. Do not let anyone tell you any two hospitals are alike. Each was built for specific reasons and on funding sources which varied depending on timing. I know. I worked in hospitals for many years. This is irrational but it is reality. When a hospital sold bonds to build does affect what patients pay. Other kinds of debt do as well.

Now, in fairness to patients, cost information should not be The Talk patients never have with hospital care-givers. Several companies are starting to make it possible for patients to comparison shop.

Up to a point, I am all for it. However, there are times when only one doctor or one hospital in the region where the patient lives can handle the problem. The question then becomes, what does that mean to the price structure? Is that hospital costlier or not?

I have much experience with patients who were desperate to get to a specific hospital because their problems were urgent. They were too scared to comparison shop and with good reason.

Both doctor comparison data and cost comparison data are new classes of information for the public.

I think the cost-comparison data will be far more reliable sooner. A dollar is a dollar.

The difficulty with comparing physicians is far more complex and important than simple doctor ratings suggest.There are some ratings systems which are excellent but you have to know how to use them. Doctor searches, in general, just ain’t ever going to be easy.

The genius app here would be having two superb classes of data—cost and quality—and marrying them into one master data bank.  Patients need to consider both cost and quality when they have medical problems which are affecting the quality of their lives.

There is no substitute for doing a thorough search for a doctor for yourself. You can get lucky and get one referral which is just right for you.

However, luck is not a plan. You have to do your homework if you are going to get the best care for yourself that you can. That calls for using all available sources of information—not just comparative data.

One excellent resource is the AMA Doctor Finder. The information is provided by the doctor. It would be impossible for any organization to verify it. However, search a doctor’s name and you will get a lot of facts to start with, ones you can double-check yourself.

You also need to ask people you know which doctors they like and why.

You can’t know too much about your doctors. Keep your ears open even when you are not looking.

In the meantime, read about new developments in cost information for patients.

The New York Times

…”A start-up financed by prominent venture capitalists and the Cleveland Clinic, Castlight Health, aims to change that by building a search engine for health care prices. Patients using Castlight could search for doctors that offer a service nearby and find out how much they will charge, depending on their insurance coverage.

“A few others are starting to publish health care prices, including Thomson Reuters, a Tennessee start-up called Change:healthcare, the New Hampshire government, which created a comparison shopping tool for residents, and health insurers. Aetna, for instance, has built tools to help patients estimate prices and may build more advanced tools, said Lonny Reisman, Aetna’s chief medical officer.

“Price transparency could significantly change the way health care is bought in the United States. The notion “seems ridiculously simple and obvious, and in any other industry, you would say, ‘Duh, we already have that.’ But in health care, it’s revolutionary,” said Alan M. Garber, a professor of medicine and the director of the center for health policy at Stanford, as well as an investor in Castlight.

“The lack of price information in health care has been a big driver of ballooning health care costs, analysts say, because costs are opaque to patients and heavily subsidized by employers. The patient has no incentive or responsibility to keep costs down. But many employers are switching to health plans that require patients to pay more out of their own pockets.”

Source: New York Times, June 10, 2010