High cost doesn’t spell quality

Don’t think that paying a big price tag for medical teatment means high quality. Making that case one more time is Harvey Feinberg, president of the Institute of Medicine in a recent interview with McKinsey&Company. Quote Feinberg: “One lesson we have learned over and over again is that (higher) volume of services does not mean higher quality or better outcomes. In fact, the evidence points in the opposite direction. If you look at Medicare expenditures by state in the United States, as a comparison against the average performance and outcomes of Medicare patients in the states, you see not a positive but an inverse correlation. The more that is spent per patient on average, the less well the patients do on average.” Astounding. It’s just like manufacturing where the highest quality companies also deliver the best prices.  The Feinberg lesson also means you should go looking for low prices if you want the best quality. That has been our experience at Serigraph. We look for Centers of Value first for quality reasons, and then  we find that their quality is top notch as well. And we steer our people to those centers.