New Guide Helps Employers Be Better Consumers

Improving Quality, Lowering Costs: Employers looking to use their purchasing power to improve health care and lower its costs have released a guide intended to help employers become better consumers. The Purchaser Guide to Value Driven Health Care was released in February by a consortium of business groups that have endorsed the Bush Administration’s “four cornerstones” approach to improving health care that the Department of Health and Human Services outlined in November. The four principles include promoting the use of health information technology, pushing medical providers to measure and publish health care quality and price information, and promoting high-quality, efficient health care.

The guide, which is available at www.leapfroggroup.org, helps employers meet these goals by providing contract language and sample letters to insurers and third-party administrators.