The Price of Care: A Healthcare Leader’s Guide to Building Trust Through Health Insurance and Financial Literacy explores how providers can address the financial uncertainty shaping patient decisions.
Unlock Health leaders Brandon Edwards and Kevin Thilborger have released a new book examining one of the most under-discussed issues in healthcare today: the role financial uncertainty plays in whether patients seek care.
Titled The Price of Care: A Healthcare Leader’s Guide to Building Trust Through Health Insurance and Financial Literacy, the book explores how rising patient financial responsibility and confusion about healthcare costs are quietly reshaping patient behavior across the United States.
Healthcare leaders frequently focus on expanding access through new facilities, telehealth programs, physician recruitment, extended clinic hours, and digital scheduling tools designed to make it easier for patients to get care when they need it. Yet many patients still hesitate to seek treatment because they are unsure what care might cost or whether they can afford it.
The Unlock Health book asserts that financial uncertainty is a major barrier to care — and that financial literacy and transparency must become part of the broader effort to improve access to healthcare.
“Patients are making important healthcare decisions while trying to navigate one of the most complicated financial systems in the country,” said Brandon Edwards, CEO of Unlock Health. “Healthcare leaders have spent decades focusing on clinical access. Today we also need to focus on financial clarity. Helping patients understand the financial implications of care is becoming essential to building trust.”
The Unlock Health book examines how financial responsibility has shifted toward patients over the past two decades, often without providing the tools needed to understand healthcare pricing, insurance coverage, or out-of-pocket costs.
“When providers stay silent about the financial side of healthcare, the narrative doesn’t stop,” said Kevin Thilborger, Chief Revenue Strategy Officer and Chief Managed Care Officer at Unlock Health. “It simply gets written by someone else — often without much understanding of how healthcare actually works.”
Drawing on decades of experience working with healthcare organizations across the country, the authors outline how providers can address financial uncertainty with patients in ways that strengthen trust while improving access to care.
The Unlock Health book offers healthcare leaders a framework for:
- Recognizing financial uncertainty as a barrier to care
- Communicating more clearly with patients about healthcare costs
- Addressing misinformation surrounding healthcare pricing
- Building trust through financial transparency and literacy
Rather than focusing on policy debates around healthcare spending, the book concentrates on practical steps healthcare organizations can take to help patients better understand the financial side of care.
“Healthcare providers cannot control every aspect of the system,” Edwards said. “However, they can control how clearly they communicate with the people they serve.”
The Price of Care is available now on UnlockManagedCare.com.
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