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Who establishes the reference price? We want full transparency — and let the market make the rules. I would still like to see the confidentiality agreements abolished so that referring doctors can identify the most cost-effective high quality providers in real time no matter what care they need and direct their patients to them. My own primary care doc is a member of an ACO.
I presume he is eligible for a bonus if he can keep costs for his patient panel below a targeted level. One of the best ways for him to do that is not to withhold care but to ensure that his patients receive necessary care from a cost-effective high quality provider and not have to send patients to an expensive hospital system where contract rates are high because of market power and not care quality.
Within a short time, another dozen or so agreed to the price so as not to lose business. As more and more patients are subject to high deductible health insurance, price sensitivity is increasing. It would be enormously helpful if this information were readily ascertainable in a systematic way in real time. By the way, non-hospital owned imaging centers are just about always significantly less expensive than hospitals and hospital owned stand alone facilities.
We agree about the confidentiality piece. The biggest impediment, by far, to true price transparency in healthcare are the confidentiality agreements between insurers and providers that preclude the disclosure of actual contract reimbursement rates.
It would be extremely helpful if both patients and referring doctors could easily ascertain contract reimbursement rates in real time for all the regional providers of a particular service, test or procedure. That way, patients could more easily and consistently be directed to the most cost-effective high quality providers.
The price charged should be a function of how much machine and staff time is required to perform the test. Over the past few years the DOJ has brought suit against payors for using this tactic, and many states have enacted laws prohibiting it.
David, thank you so much for shedding light on this. Do you have a white paper or blog post we could refer people to when they ask this question? When you go to the store to buy a toothbrush, computer, car, you have an idea how much negotiation or discount requesting room there is.
Why should health care be ANy different? The main impediments, as I see them, are individual greed, insurance company middlemen, and the widespread perception that health care should be free. I think that last one is changing rapidly.
But the former two remain as issues to overcome. The phantom billing practice exists because the feds require providers to bill all patients and their insurers the same amount which is the artificially high full list price or chargemaster rate in the case of hospitals. So, even Medicare and Medicaid get billed at full list and then they pay their administered dictated rate and commercial insurers pay their contract rate if they have one.
It seems that this crazy system could be fixed by allowing providers to bill patients and insurers the rate that the insurer has agreed to pay or, in the case of the public insurers, their administered price. Do you want the government to determine when you need an imaging study or lab test?
Do you think that the costs of services in other countries are good benchmarks for services and goods provided in the USA? If so, on what economic basis do you feel that way? The suggestion that physicians should make the same, lab tests or imaging studies should be similar, or goods and services such as bread, cars, toothbrushes, etc. Paul, there is a trade off for cost and access. Is triage making some wait in line unethical? Do docs call for more tests when they own the lab?
The cost in other countries is reflective of more government control. As a doc I expect you not to want that for obvious reasons. It is interesting that on the largest physician only internet forum SERMO how paranoid docs are about sharing prices. Everyone posts under a pseudonym and no one needs to know where you practice, and yet if you even hint at a price for a service you are virtually shouted down with warnings that you are breaking the law.
And consultants cost money, a lot of money, hence they only tend to be hired when why is trying to make more money, not less. No, transparency has to come from changes in the system the way we pay for services or from non-governmental groups that step up to inform the public. When it comes to health care in the U.
The problem goes much deeper…it is systemic. My proof? When was the last time you heard of an insurance company going under? When was the last time you heard of a for profit hospital that went under?
If they were close to going under, they were bought up by a larger for profit entity and higher prices were the rule. Many hospitals will not certify doctors to practice at that hospital. Why does this condition exist? Doctors should be able to walk into any hospital and perform any procedure that is necessary for the patience well being.
Do you know anything about them? Fantastic idea. Keep going. The result of all this gaming that has been going on for years is that patients paying out of their own pocket have been royally screwed. Long overdue concept. Best case scenario is that open and fair pricing will evolve. Open and fair pricing must evolve.
This is the last remaining big opaque marketplace. Think what happened to airline ticket sales, real estate sales, car sales when transparency came. Not saying that will necessarily gain you anything…but if you are a billing person, you probably get a lot of crap all day long from patients….
It WAS around rush hour as well, as I recall. Being nice is a salve which can be applied on a lot of hurting functionaries who have to deal with angry unhappy customers all day long…think of it as a kind of healing you can give THEM…. We are all in this together, and the billing people — and the docs, the hospital administrators, the Big Pharma folks, the insurance phone bank folks — are patients too at some point. The problem is knowing that you are paying the fair amount for services rendered.
As a physician, I know too well that billing seems disjointed and without logical reason, although there is method to the madness. Clearly, though, there needs to be better billing transparency so that people know that, in the majority of cases anyway, it is not that doctors are greedy. It is a matter of insurance reimbursement why billed amounts are so apparently haphazard. Totally agree.
All the prices should be posted. My daughter needed some dental work. The bill was submitted and some percentage was reimbursed. We received a bill for the remainder. The other one was a pediatric cardiologist. I would, however, be interested to know if there is actually such a regulation. Sorry for the lack of definitive evidence on this point. I like the notion that any normal person should ask for a discount with health-care bills, Paul! I advocate that ALL imaging studies be billed at cost plus fair profit percentage.
But until the insurance reimbursement game is under better control, doctors and patients will continue to suffer this massive price gouging confusion. Is this an Office of the Inspector General issue, or an issue of insurance company regs? Walking into urgent care and being required to sign what in essence is a cart blanche responsibility for the costs…without even knowing the vaguest estimates of what those costs might be….
Jeanne and I are colleagues in this effort, so I always hit up her database as part of my hunt for an answer, and I advise all — patients or clinicians — to do the same. Knowledge is power, get some. Couple of questions for you.
As you grow I imagine this will problem, as it has with many of the review sites. At clearhealthcosts, we have been collecting cash or self-pay prices on common procedures for about 3 years now, in 7 metro areas. We use those as context for what our community members share. We are also asking community members who share to give us email addresses, so we can back-check.
Some info we have corrected, as in misplaced decimals and suchlike. Some of the preliminary results from our WNYC pilot project in can be found here; this blog post links to others in the pilot series, with an idea of what infographics we hope to replicate with PriceCheck.
Thanks for shining the light! Finally people can have a sense of what prices are in the ballpark and the information they need to shop around. Just like Jeanne said. I tried like heck to get a price on a colonoscopy before having the procedure, thought I had it all nailed down. Then in a conversation the day after, I was told something different—that the price I was quoted did NOT include the facility and that there would be a separate fee.
So, right now, even a well-inentioned, competitive provider who really should be bragging loudly about their prices, cannot give a straight answer. Interesting story. Where do you live? Those are supposed to be percent covered under the ACA though we are learning that they are not always — quite often people are asked to pay a portion as deductible or co-insurance.
If it was preventive, why were they telling you you need to pay 40 percent? So although they made a mistake, it was not of the nature of springing unanticipated charges on me after the fact. I used to think the military and broadcast engineering was addicted to acronyms. Then I started covering healthcare and getting involved in healthcare policy, and realized that the medicos win the acronym game hands down. Their costs are so low, my friend said, that the added requirements of proving their accountability would swallow any rewards they could produce from cost savings.
And how refreshing it is to see ordinary citizens achieving what regulators and government failed to achieve. Thank you so much! Yes but for every success story there are a hundred failures. Guess who won? Also, given gridlock in Washington, single-payer would never have passed. Do you agree? Your email address will not be published.
Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Health Tech Deals. Tweets by THCBstaff. Spread the love. Early Exchange Outlook Writing the Value-Based Contract. Everything we need to know about the lack of integrity in this area is: 1.
In the 8 years since, nothing much has changed about it. We do need regulators, because a fair amount of medical care is involuntary. Also, we get medical care episodically in our lives for the most part. In other words, we cannot threaten providers with not buying care, and we cannot threaten them with never going back again if we are ripped off It is a unique industry that needs unique regulations.
Oops, sorry if I misspoke. In way too many sectors of health care, the more you bill, the more you make. If a firm decides to send huge bills to non rich customers, they go broke But in America we have decided more or less passively to let hospitals act as independent economic entities — rather than regulated public utilities. Reading about Bayonne makes me long for national price controls on emergency care. Thank you, Bob. Bob, As many more people gain health insurance coverage under the ACA, including Medicaid expansion, I think there is a reasonable prospect that politicians, especially liberals, will turn their attention to costs and prices.
If you really want the gory details… It was billed under an incorrect procedure code. I have proposed the creation of specialized Health Courts.
The proceedings would be on the public record. Barry, thanks for your expertise. I am a huge fan of your work! My guess is that MFN has become a convenient pretext for providers. Paul, Paul, there is a trade off for cost and access. Excellent point. And being nice is, well, nice.
Thanks for the kff link. Helpful information! Our notes crossed on the site. What state are you in? And was this an in-network provider? Thanks, Paul. Man, I love this idea, Jeanne. We care deeply about good data. View Plans.
Potential Savings:. Our goal at NewChoiceHealth is to provide you with comprehensive medical pricing information that gives you the power to make more informed healthcare purchasing decisions. Because medical procedure pricing varies by procedure type, insurance type, and numerous other factors, price ranges must be used to best represent facility level pricing.
Pricing shown is either provided by the facilities If you are a facility, please contact us if you would like to update your profile or commercial plans and fee schedules, and should be used only as a benchmark to compare pricing at medical facilities. Compare providers in your area and save! Procedure Resource Center. What can affect the cost of an MRI? What to expect during your MRI recovery 8 tips for reducing the cost of your medical procedure.
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Nov 6, · An MRI machine costs between $1 million and $3 million. For best functionality, the equipment must be stored under extremely particular, sterile, temperature-controlled settings . Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) Abdomen Head Knee Arthrogram Shoulder Spine CONTACT US Need to ask a question, email your doctor, search our Phone Directory, talk to a . The MRI cost me $ at the lab. I asked them to send the results to Kaiser as well which they did promptly as well as provided me with a written report and a CD containing the MRI data. I .