Cost-Of-Care Conversations

Rising healthcare costs have been a serious concern for decades. One approach to addressing high cost is for patients and clinicians to have cost-of-care conversations. This entry provides a description of the empirical cost conversations literature. It addresses definitions and frequency of cost conversations, barriers and facilitators of cost conversations, methodological characteristics of cost conversations studies, and patient adherence concerns. In addition, it presents a communication theory-driven approach to studying cost conversations and offers conclusions about the status of the cost conversations literature and directions for future research.