Evaluating Patient and Physician Cost Knowledge in the Emergency Department

University of Utah512 enrolled

Overview

The purpose of this study is to identify existing cost knowledge of Emergency Medicine (EM) physicians and patients and investigates its reported impacts on medical compliance. A cross-sectional survey will be administered electronically to Emergency Medicine physicians at the University of Utah Hospital and the Emergency Physician Integrated Care, LLC (EPIC) who staff ten-community hospital Emergency Departments (ED) in order to investigate physician knowledge and attitudes regarding cost and perceived patient compliance. In addition, a cross-sectional survey will be administered to a convenience sample of patients presenting to the University of Utah Emergency Department to obtain information about their cost knowledge and reported compliance. All ED patients will complete a follow-up phone survey to measure compliance with recommendations made during the ED visits. Following administration of the baseline survey physicians will be provided the prices of the test and procedures and will be re-surveyed 30-days later as a post intervention test to measure changes in knowledge and attitudes.

Study Type

OBSERVATIONAL

Enrollment

512

Conditions

Economic Problems

Eligibility

Sex: ALLMin age: 18 YearsHealthy volunteers:

Medical Language ↔ Plain English

Inclusion Criteria Patient Population: * 18 years old or older * Deemed psychologically and medically stable by the ED care provide * Speak English Exclusion Criteria Patient Population: * Prisoner * Brought to Emergency Department by Emergency Medical Service Inclusion Criteria Physician Population: * Employed in target medical practices Exclusion Criteria Physician Population: * none

Locations (1)

Outcomes

Primary Outcomes

Proportion of emergency medicine physician with accurate (+/- 25% of actual cost) cost knowledge of common medical services; influence on testing and prescribing patterns.

Measure the extent of formal education regarding cost of medical services that physicians in the survey population have received and how that impacts knowledge and accuracy; perceived impact on medical compliance among patients.

Time frame: 1 year

Secondary Outcomes

Proportion of emergency department patients with accurate (+/- 25% actual costs) knowledge of medical service cost; correlation between health literacy and cost knowledge accuracy in patients.

Measure patient health literacy using the REALM-SF (AHRQ) and determine any correlation with cost estimation accuracy and reported impact on medical compliance among patients.

Time frame: 1 year