Patients want to talk about their out-of-pocket costs-Can real-time benefit tools help?

Caroline is a General Internist. Her clinical interests are in primary care for vulnerable populations and patients with multiple chronic conditions. Her research interests focus on the role that money plays in medical decision-making. She currently studies financial barriers to care for patients with multiple chronic conditions, the impact of recent price transparency regulations, and the ways that doctors and patients communicate about and make decisions based on out-of-pocket costs.

I am a physician and behavioral scientist at Duke University. My research and writing explores the quirks in human nature that influence our lives — the mixture of rational and irrational forces that affect our health, our happiness and the way our society functions. (What fun would it be to tackle just the easy problems?)

I am currently exploring controversial issues about the role of values and preferences in health care decision making, from decisions at the bedside to policy decisions. I use the tools of decision psychology and behavioral economics to explore topics like informed consent, shared decision making and health care spending. My books include Pricing Life (MIT Press 2000) and Free Market Madness (Harvard Business Press, 2009). My newest book, Critical Decisions (HarperCollins), came out in September of 2012, and explores the challenges of shared decision making between doctors and patients.