PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Grande, David
TI  - Sticker Shock: The Experience of a Health Care Consumer
AID  - 10.1370/afm.1921
DP  - 2016 May 01
TA  - The Annals of Family Medicine
PG  - 270--272
VI  - 14
IP  - 3
4099  - http://www.annfammed.org/content/14/3/270.short
4100  - http://www.annfammed.org/content/14/3/270.full
SO  - Ann Fam Med2016 May 01; 14
AB  - With implementation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, more Americans are gaining insurance coverage but often have high deductibles and significant out-of-pocket cost sharing. Deductibles routinely exceed $1,000 and often approach $5,000. In this essay, I share our family’s experience attempting to navigate urgent medical decisions in a high-deductible health plan. In accessing urgent care for our child’s fracture, we unknowingly encountered a 10-fold variation for what should be routine, low-cost technology (ie, plain film x-ray). Though the financial consequences for our family were minimal, for many families with high-deductible plans the financial implications are enormous. Through this experience, I learned that the principles of consumer-directed health care—that patients can and should price shop for care—are flawed in urgent and emergent situations.