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How can we work together?
Some of the factors that contribute to rising health care costs and rising premiums are difficult to influence: We can’t avoid growing older, and no one would want to stop the introduction of new, more effective technology, even if it is more costly. But there are factors that we can influence, if we all make an effort — physicians, hospitals, drug companies, policymakers, employers, our members, and us, your health insurance company. Here’s how we can reform health care and bring about positive change:
- Lower the risk of illness by eating well, exercising, and not smoking.
- Manage chronic illnesses effectively by following physicians’ advice: Take prescribed medicine, eat right, and exercise.
- Improve research on what medical treatments work best and encourage physicians to use techniques that prove most effective.
- Avoid expensive brand-name drugs when inexpensive generic equivalents are equally effective.
- Give consumers better information to help them choose a doctor, select treatment, and make other important health care decisions.
- Improve the operational efficiency of health insurers to lower administrative costs.
- Align incentives between health insurers and their physician/hospital partners to reward producing quality results — keeping healthy people well and caring for the sick — rather than linking payments to the quantity of medical services.
- Seek ways to decrease the practice of defensive medicine.
- Enhance health information technology to improve patient care and safety and to minimize paperwork for health care providers.
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