Field Notes Inside an Integrated Communications Agency

I have a love for ads made long ago. So simple, so sell-y, so radiant with clipart. Naturally, I swooned when I learned that the National Academy of Sciences in Washington is currently running a retrospective of 20th-century health posters. It’s pretty fascinating to look back on how simply the public health authorities chose to warn nations about the mysterious ailments of the time. The kind of look and feel we use today to promote indie bands and liquor, they used to inform and warn about the dangers of tuberculosis and syphilis.

Knowing that the anti-information approach will probably never make a comeback, I think we should all take a moment to pay homage to the era of cartooned minimalism.

"Achoo. And so begins an epidemic."

I have been watching the reaction of doctors and organized medicine to efforts by insurance companies to create competitive ranking information for consumers.  Without this kind of information, supply and demand economics just don't work.

There's a great article in the Tenneseean today detailing the struggle.

 The docs clearly see this as an attack on their reputations and they're fighting the process in the courts and, in an interesting tit-for-tat in Texas, doctors are ranking insurers in retaliation.  

I can understand physician concerns about the rigor and/or accuracy of the insurers' rating process, but I don't hear any better ideas coming from the provider community.

It seems to me that as consumers begin to pay a larger share of health care costs, there is a crying need for comparative cost and quality info.  It has to start somewhere. If doctors have a better idea on how to fill this need, it's time to speak up.  What's their solution?