Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, August 18, 1993 TAG: 9308180080
SECTION: NATL/INTL PAGE: A-10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: CHICAGO LENGTH: Short
Highest marks went to traditional fee-for-service care provided by small practices - usually 10 doctors or fewer, researchers led by Dr. Haya R. Rubin reported in today's Journal of the American Medical Association.
"We need a report card in every American city that tells the public what it's like to be in each of these plans," said John E. Ware Jr., principal investigator of the ongoing Medical Outcomes Study.
An HMO official criticized the study for using data from 1986 and for failing to ask about patients' expenses and paperwork in traditional fee-for-service care.
"There have been three consumer surveys by outside organizations since 1986, and they really do show a high level of consumer satisfaction" with HMOs, said Samuel Havens, board chairman of the Group Health Association of America. His group represents 350 health maintenance organizations with three-quarters of the nation's 41.4 million HMO members.
Ware said a 1990 follow-up of 10 percent of the original 17,000 patients surveyed yielded similar results, and he doubts the situation is different now.
In the survey, patients treated in small practices under fee-for-service care rated all aspects of it better than HMO patients rated their care.
Such health-care report cards for doctors, hospitals and health plans are an idea being promoted by the Clinton administration to help people make informed choices under a managed-competition system that Clinton envisions.
by CNB