For their part, not all doctors want to cede control to patients who have far less medical knowledge or who may be relying on information they got from friends and the Internet. Also, many physicians don’t have the time for long discussions, and the healthcare system isn’t set up to pay for them.

Even so, hospitals and clinics in several other states, including Massachusetts, Minnesota, and Washington, have created collaborative programs to ensure that information and concerns flow back and forth between patient and doctor. UCSF’s approach, in particular, has been a model for other programs around the nation.

The concept of shared decision-making has been around for years, but it is gaining new traction with the nation’s health law, which specifically encourages its use.

“Patients and families need to be in the driver’s seat with their doctors, making decisions that are the right choice for them for their unique circumstances,” said the UCSF associate professor Jeff Belkora, who runs the shared decision-making program also known as the Patient Support Corps.

That way, he said, patients avoid “a rocky, bumpy ride” of either too much or too little treatment.

At UCSF, patients receive DVDs, pamphlets, or links approved by the physicians that explain available options for treatment. During appointments, the doctors not only explain carefully the benefits and the risks of those options, but also ask about patients’ priorities and goals.

Patients are paired with college students or recent graduates who help them make a list of questions for the doctor beforehand. These young people also record the visit and type notes for the patients, who then leave with a definitive account of what was said.

That’s important because patients are nervous and emotional after a cancer diagnosis and often freeze up, said Edward Wang, a premedical student. Wang said his presence helps put them at ease. “You’re just making a question list and you’re just taking notes,” he said. “But these simple things really do matter to the patient and to the doctor as well.”

Shared decision-making has been used for patients with breast and prostate cancer, heart disease, back pain, and other conditions for which there are multiple treatment options that offer similar results.

“It’s a massive cultural change,” said Glyn Elwyn, who researches shared decision-making at the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice. “It’s going from ‘I’m the expert, take my recommendation’ to ‘I am going to inform you and respect your wishes.’”

Elwyn and other researchers have found that patients are more satisfied with their care when they have a say in it. Also, it may save money. Some research shows that patients who are involved in their treatment decisions are more likely to be conservative, opting against costly procedures or surgeries.