Health-Improving but Cost-Ineffective Care

CHDS’ Ankur Pandya and colleagues discuss the distinction between no-value care and low-value care in a recently published article, “Responding to Health-Improving but Cost-Ineffective Care,”and propose five questions for health policy makers to ask about low-value care, which is health-improving but cost-ineffective care.

Questions include: (1) are we sure it is cost-ineffective care, pointing out that designating care as cost-ineffective is only as robust as the analysis done and the underlying evidence on which it was based; (2) are there ethical arguments that outweigh the cost-effectiveness, noting that there are ethical principles that policy makers could consider in the decision-making; (3) what is gained by challenging the low-value service, and how do we weigh the costs of implementing a response against the benefits; (4) whether the price could be lowered (in which case, the care may become high-value) and if cannot be; (5) can the quantity of the low-value care be reduced? They emphasize that reducing the quantity of low-value care should be the final question asked.

Learn more: Read the Harvard T.H. Chan School press release
Learn more: Read the full JAMA Health Forum article, “Responding to Health-Improving but Cost-Ineffective Care”
Learn more: Read about Cost-Effectiveness Analysis