If cost is all the public responds to when talking about healthcare, then cost may not be a bad place to wage reform-minded battles.

I draw your attention to a CNN story from last week about a Fairlawn, Ohio, physician who has helped empower patients and ultimately lower costs while improving access to care and even manipulating the mainstream media's intense focus on healthcare costs just a tad.

Family physician Dr. Doug Lefton had long sent uninsured patients home without lab work because they simply couldn't afford the tests. A former reporter himself, Lefton contacted the nearby Akron Beacon Journal, which then ran a story about the high cost of lab tests.

According to CNN, the head of PrePaidLab, an Ohio-based online marketer of lab tests, read the story and contacted Lefton with an idea. The two then went to the Summit County Medical Society and cut a deal with testing giant Laboratory Corporation of America to allow patients to purchase lab services at deep discounts through the medical society's website. For example, a lipid panel costs $18 through the site, many times less than the $148 some Akron-area practices ask their uninsured patients and others with high-deductible health plans to pay.

"These people that would ordinarily not be able to afford lab work are paying almost identical the amount the government pays for Medicaid," explains PrePaidLab CEO Tom Patton. "[The prices] are spectacularly low for something you can get on the market yourself."

Lefton likens the service to Amazon.com. I think it's more than that because there's other IT involved. CNN reports that after customers pay for the tests through the medical society's site, they can take their receipts to any LabCorp location in the country, then receive results electronically through a secure portal. The same results get sent electronically to the doctor.

CNN interviewed one patient who got a comprehensive metabolic profile, a lipid panel and a hemoglobin test--total retail price more than $400--for about $50, two days before his appointment with Lefton. When the patient arrived for the visit, Lefton already had the results in hand.

So there, one simple piece of consumer-friendly technology saves money and provides better information to the physician at the point of care. Interface the results reporting system with an EMR--which LabCorp and many of its competitors already can do--and you've got yourself interoperability, too. It doesn't have to be hard and it doesn't have to be expensive. - Neil