A new study published in Archives of Surgery “validates a key assumption” in giving consumers hospital performance data to help them make decisions about which hospitals to choose--but 31% of Medicare surgical patients said they left the decision to their physicians. The study surveyed 510 Medicare patients who had undergone high-risk operations for abdominal aneurysm repair, heart value replacement surgery, or resections for bladder, lung, or stomach cancer. Twenty-seven percent of Medicare patients said they or their families were the primary decision makers for inpatient care, while 42% said they made the decision with their physicians. Physicians were more likely to be the primary decision maker for male patients, those in poor to fair health, and for cardiovascular surgery.
The study also found that 289 patients had gathered information about the hospitals from other sources besides their physicians, reports The Washington Post. The researchers speculate that physicians made the decisions for nearly a third of patients “because a paternalistic physician (or healthcare system) imposed a decision on them” or they were unable to get the information to help them make the decision themselves.
