How important is cost-awareness in medical decision-making? Costs of Care, a "social venture" designed to help doctors understand how the decisions they make affect what their patients pay, would argue that it's crucial. As reported by CommonHealth, the non-profit recently launched a national contest looking for the best anecdotes from patients and clinicians that illustrate this point:
Dr. Neel Shah, the founder of Costs of Care and a resident in obstetrics and gynecology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, says the contest stemmed from “my belief that one compelling story is worth 100 academic papers on a subject.”
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Entries have begun to roll in for the contest, Shah said, and some of the most compelling involve people who had health insurance but then found themselves facing enormous bills.
Contest judges include some pretty heavy-hitters, including Michael Leavitt, former U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services; Jeffrey Flier, MD, dean of Harvard Medical School; and Atul Gawande, MD, surgeon and New Yorker staff writer. Essay submissions are due Nov. 1.
