Healthcare Price Transparency

No you don't, because hospitals intentionally obfuscate their pricing, and in many cases it's impossible for them to even tell you what your final bill would be for a procedure.This is the source of the problem. There is no 'market' to speak of. There needs to be laws requiring hospitals to provide prices up front and honor them after the fact.

Lack of price transparency feels like a big part of the problem here. It's nearly impossible for a consumer to shop around based on price, allowing prices to go up freely.I'm actually surprised healthcare providers can legally be as opaque as they are: how is it okay to charge arbitrary amounts after the fact and require the consumer to pay? Even car mechanics make upfront estimates and get them signed by the consumer, because otherwise the consumer might refuse to pay. Why doesn&#x

this is a huge one. healthcare seems like the only industry where you can be billed for a service without being informed of its price first.

First off, if something this large can drop by 75% in price then you're being bamboozled, extorted, or potentially both."Under our current system, it’s nearly impossible for people with health insurance to find out in advance what anything covered by their insurance will end up costing."It's worse than that. Not only can you find or figure out how much everything will cost, most places (particularly hospitals and outpatient centers) will not even tell you how mu

something like a chargemaster?https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ChargemasterThat said, mandatory transparency (from both the hospitals as the insurance/healthcare plans on what exactly happens in what scenario (say x-ray for possibly broken elbow), and the current rate/probability of scenarios) should be requisite, but that is only a necessary condition. The behaviours of t

It is a difficult problem because there is no one price to show. Almost every user might be shown a different price.To my knowledge, at many orgs, insurance is actually funded directly by the employer; they do not contribute to a massive general pool along with other orgs. That individual employer helps set rates and coverage for their individual plan, and they might hire a big payer (insurance company) like Blue Cross Blue Shield to administer the plan that they created. This means that ever

Doctors don't know the prices, and neither do the customers (not without doing a lot of homework that can't be done during emergencies). Even when you know the list prices, the actual prices your insurance negotiates are almost certainly different, so asking for list prices isn't enough.Basically, in the U.S. the healthcare system is not exactly a free market as pricing signals are unclear, and most consumers have no idea how or inclination to price shop as they have been trai

The industry isn't built to support market based solutions which is why providers couldn't give you a price even if you asked. That's what parent poster is trying to say. There just isn't pricing transparency so you can't get pricing. Where it's been shown to work is with smaller doctors offices for routine procedures like a flu shot. If you ask for a price and offer cash, they can work with customers on that.

Really, you think there's a market for healthcare?Try walking into a hospital and asking how much something costs. I can tell you that you won't/can't get an answer in over 60%, specifically because the software they use does not show prices only billing codes! So the person providing care can not find out how much it costs... how are you supposed to choose?Try calling billing once you have the correct code. I can tell you what happened in my case. I called 4 times and

It's much harder on many surgeries. They come in with "it depends" and completely avoid discussing it. The doctors often do not even know, and those who know will refuse to discuss. On top of that, consultations are not free and often expensive.And something like cancer treatment is nigh impossible to get a quote on. They obfuscate the costs even when required to post them - see <a href="https://www.healthcaredive.com/news/hospital-price-transparency-continu