Women and health reform: how national health care can enhance coverage, affordability, and access for women (examples from massachusetts).

BACKGROUND: Massachusetts women have the highest rates of health insurance coverage in the nation and women's access to care has improved across all demographic groups. However, important challenges persist. As national health reform implementation moves forward under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), states will likely encounter many of the same women's health challenges experienced in Massachusetts over the past 7 years. METHODS: A review of the literature and data analyses comparing health care services access, utilization, and cost, and health outcomes from Massachusetts pre- and post-2006 health care reform identified two key challenges in women's continuity of coverage and affordability. CONCLUSION: These areas are crucial for state and national policymakers to consider in improving women's health as they work to implement health care reform at the state and federal levels.

Talking about money: how primary care physicians respond to a patient's question about financial incentives.

Patients sometimes express concern about the influence of "perverse" financial incentives on their care. We recruited a convenience sample of 101 primary care physicians and obtained information on their compensation. Then we audiotaped them as they role-played a response to a videotaped mock patient who asked them how they were paid and how their method of compensation affected clinical decisions. Overall, 36% of the physicians did not give enough information in their role-play response to allow an independent determination of how they were paid. Adopting a broad spectrum of attitudes and approaches, nearly every physician avoided discussing the role of incentives and stressed instead that he or she could be trusted under any circumstance.