Todd Tiahrt: “I think that the gentleman would agree that we need to have more transparency in the cost of health care so that…”

“I think that the gentleman would agree that we need to have more transparency in the cost of health care so that consumers can make better decisions; also, so that physicians can make better decisions. One of the gentlemen that I spoke with is a physician who has retired from running a surgical group. He said when he was just a surgeon, he would order a lot of tests because he thought they were good data points for him to sort of mull over and make a decision, and he gave me the example of an x-ray and an MRI. He said, quite often, you need one or the other and occasionally, you need both; but for most information, especially in his type of work, he thought that an MRI is the most productive for him, but on occasions, x-rays. He said that it was very difficult for him to determine where these costs were going until he started looking down as the manager of this surgical group and saying, what are driving my costs? He realized that all his doctors did the same thing that he used to do. They would order every possible test as data points whether they were necessary or not, and that transparency for him made him tighten up his procedures and lower the costs of health care. I think if consumers had good, clear transparency in the costs that were involved, they also would make good decisions, and health savings accounts would help consumers have more control over their health care.”