Patient choice has become the standard practice in healthcare provision: It is time to extend its meaning: Comment on “Is patient choice the future of health care systems?”

Abstract

The key argument of this commentary is that patient choice has a broader meaning than suggested by consumerist choice models. In increasingly marketized health care systems with diversified and knowledge-based service arrangements, patients are continuously obliged to choose insurers, physicians or hospitals and treatments-whether they like it or not. However, health care users refer to a wide range of roles and resources while taking health-related decisions. They are patients, consumers and co-producers at the same time. Therefore, as it is argued, healthcare policies have to recognize users’ multiple identities by providing more balanced choice frameworks. In particular, two aspects are crucial: first, opportunities for users to voice worries and concerns and to co-design default options of health care choices; secondly, taking the significance of interpersonal trust in choice-making processes into account.