Consumers' Information Needs: Results of a National Survey

Prologue: If it is true that knowledge is power, then many consumers in today's health care marketplace are in trouble. Without specific, objective, and understandable information about the different types of health plans available and the practical implications of choosing one type of plan over another, consumers are unable to effectively negotiate what can be an overwhelming system and to make appropriate choices from an increasingly diverse and complex array of health plan options. Consumers must be given the tools— hence, the power—they now lack. However, as attorney and consumer advocate Stephen Isaacs points out, before health plans, providers, governments, and employers can provide such information, they must know what types of information consumers want and in what form they want it. Until now, these questions have gone largely unaddressed. Isaacs is the founder and president of the Center for Health and Social Policy, in Pelham, New York, which conducts health policy research and public education projects both in the United States and abroad. Formerly, Isaacs was a professor of public health and director of the Development Law and Policy Program at Columbia University in New York City. While at Columbia he was an adviser to the survey whose results are reported in this paper. He is the coauthor of The Consumer's Legal Guide to loday's Health Care, published in 1992, and he has written numerous syndicated newspaper and professional journal articles. Isaacs received a bachelor's degree from Brown University, in Providence, Rhode Island, and a law degree from Columbia University. Abstract: A national survey conducted in 1995 found that a disturbingly high percentage of Americans do not understand the basic elements of health plans and that people want much more information, particularly about the physicians in the plans and the range of services that are covered. Their most important concern when selecting a health plan is the quality of physicians in the plan, followed by the courtesy of doctors and staff and the freedom to choose their own doctors and hospitals.