How can patient education contribute to improved health care under prospective pricing?
Clinicians and policy makers are faced with one central dilemma under prospective pricing: how to maintain high quality of care with restricted financial resources. Patient education is one element of care which has been proposed to have the ability to improve the quality of care, while reducing costs for some conditions. This paper reviews the empirical evidence which touches on this question, including preoperative education, home care education, cooperative care units, diabetes patient education, and others. The evidence indicates that patient education can improve the quality of care, while in some cases also reducing the cost of providing medical care. This conclusion has important policy implications under conditions of reduced resources for medical care, as is occurring under prospective pricing in the United States.