Outcomes research focuses on quantifying points that are important to both patient and physician. Surely cost is one of those points. It creates familiar ground for discussion. Adults are accustomed to weighing the benefits and burdens of spending money to obtain valuable services and goods. It enables patient autonomy.
People increasingly make choices about whom to see and where to go for health care.
Cost matters to patients. It answers questions about why health care is so expensive. Anyone with a smidgen of interest in accounting would want to know why things cost as much as they do. People deserve an explanation, and once they see the numbers, they'll want one. Educational level, savings patterns, family priorities, and other nonmedical factors are not aspects of patient care that physicians have been trained to ask about.