AcademyHealth: Price transparency is great, but only a first step

AcademyHealth: Price transparency is great, but only a first step
  08/01/2013
  Aaron Carroll
It feel like all of you not only read this piece at the NYT on price transparency. I don’t think I’m as excited by it as you are. I explain why in my latest post at the AcademyHealth blog.
Go read!
@aaronecarroll

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- Comments (4)
- by David C on August 1st, 2013 at 10:09
  I certainly agree that a few widely-scattered clinics won’t change things much. It sure seems that this kind of transparency could make a LOT of difference if all providers were required to post prices.
  I don’t think that will ever happen as long as we are using a model that relies on private insurers individually negotiating with providers. The insurers rightly consider the prices they negotiate to be proprietary.
  I guess I have to give up on the dream of single-payer insurance, but maybe there’s still a glimmer of hope that we can someday move to all-payer pricing. That would make this kind of transparency feasible on a large scale.
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- by Bob Hertz on August 1st, 2013 at 19:58
  Thanks for a good article.
  I favor anything which can disturb the price gouging practices of hospitals, so I will endorse this program.
  With all its limits.
  Incidentally, do many people really schedule tonsillectomies in advance?
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- by SAO on August 2nd, 2013 at 09:07
  I think pricing transparency needs to be a law, forbidding price discrimination. Everyone gets the same price. A few clinics aren’t going to make a difference.
  The price I pay depends not only on what my insurance negotiated with the clinic, doctor, anesthesiologists, etc, but the details of my plan. As a result,neither Aetna nor the clinic can give me a clue about price and when they do, they never add up all the bills that eventually flow in, like the anesthesiologist’s fee.
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- by Floccina on August 2nd, 2013 at 10:31
  It won’t work for emergencies.
  Does it have to?
  How big a part of the whole bill?A new cost analysis suggests that emergency care accounts for far more than the commonly accepted 1.9 percent of the nation’s $2.6-trillion annual health care bill. It’s more likely between 4.9 and 5.8 percent — possibly as high as 6.2 to 10 percent.How big a part of the whole bill?
  A new cost analysis suggests that emergency care accounts for far more than the commonly accepted 1.9 percent of the nation’s $2.6-trillion annual health care bill. It’s more likely between 4.9 and 5.8 percent — possibly as high as 6.2 to 10 percent.But Lee and his co-authors point out, based on data from other studies, that MEPS undercounts the number of ED visits and the number of ED patients who are admitted to hospitals. Adjusting for those discrepancies using data from a variety of other published sources, the authors estimate that ED costs are between 4.9 percent to 5.8 percent of total health care spending.
  At the link he still does not include all care that would be difficult to price around but it does seem that most expensive care is not emergency. Much spending is due to chronic conditions and aging due to aging were one can plan ahead.
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