Value-based care will continue to bring costs to the forefront of healthcare, especially as it pertains to finding ways to truncate costs without comprising patient care and satisfaction. With this shift, more medical schools are teaching students to consider healthcare costs when treating patients, according to Georgia Health News.
Here are four thoughts:
1. A 2015 Association of American Medical Colleges study found 144 out of 145 U.S. medical schools mandate their students to study the healthcare system and healthcare financing to graduate.
2. However, many practicing physicians may not be well-versed in test, procedure or treatments' costs, which may impact medical students' perceptions of costs when they work alongside physicians during rotations.
3. Many older physicians only learned about medicine's scientific aspects during their medical education, and did not believe it to be their role to discuss costs with their patients. For instance, Mark Ebell, MD, a family medicine practitioner, said he only began considering costs when he relocated and began treating an underinsured population. Dr. Ebell told Georgia Health News, "All of a sudden I went from a mostly insured population to a mostly uninsured or Medicaid population, so it was a real learning experience for me to have to think, 'OK, I can't use those expensive drugs anymore.'"
4. One medical student learned about healthcare's financial considerations during her first year of medical school, but said it may have been more beneficial to learn about costs and insurance during the latter half of medical school once medical students are in the clinical throes of medicine.