Recommended Initiatives
Important Issues
Recommended Initiative 7:
Prepare Consumers for More Active Role
Related News | Policy Papers & Articles | Web ResourcesEngage and educate consumers about taking an active role in their health care by promoting health, wellness, and prevention tenets.*
Benefit of Recommended Initiative 7
Insomuch as our health care system is designed to assure a healthier society, clearly helping prevent disease in the first place alleviates pain and suffering all around. However, a broad educational effort, complete with tangible incentives leading to healthier populations using fewer health care services, also results in diminished utilization and cost.
*There are few, if any risks related to educating consumers or providing incentives to healthy choices. The roadblocks to active engagement on the part of consumers/patients are typically related to individual inertia and the force of bad habits. Finding ways to make information easily available and providing incentives that actually work will be critical to realizing these Recommended Initiative. However, providing incentives to consumers to engage in healthy lifestyles can present challenges. For example, while allowing for health club memberships to be a tax deductible expense might encourage membership in a health club, it is difficult to measure use of that facility.