title: 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.
authors.affiliation: Justus Liebig University Giessen, Giessen, Germany.
authors.forename: Benjamin
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Ewert
keywords: Equity; Healthcare Users’ Roles; Interpersonal Trust; Patient Choice; Voice