Pillar Four: Informed Choice

The final pillar of value-based purchasing is informed choice. The challenge here is to encourage demand side participants to choose better performance at all levels of the health care system, thus rewarding producers of care with increased market share. While all demand side participants are important, an increasing priority for employers and health plans is to activate the individual consumer to make better and more informed choices.

The important choices for consumers are:

• Choice of lifestyle;
• Choice of treatment intervention;
• Choice of compliance with treatment regimen;
• Choice of health plan (when consumers have a choice);
• Choice of hospital and physician.