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A delusional wishful thinking that a patient, while in pain and in need to care, will be shopping and browsing around to see prices, and that would drive prices

A delusional wishful thinking that a patient, while in pain and in need to care, will be shopping and browsing around to see prices, and that would drive prices down. Even if that was true, it requires that you could predict how much your treatment or visit would cost, and anyone who have actually used and paid bills in the health system in US knows how it goes.

adamnemecek 8y ago
It depends on the patient and the procedure. It will keep them honest tho, like if the hospital charges 10x what the next one does, you can ask some questions.
bkohlmann 8y ago
While you are right about in the moment decision making, this is a welcome change. What will likely happen is that aggregators / bloggers / journalists will start comparing prices and write about the differences. People will see the articles. And in a moment of crisis, they'll potentially think about the ones they read about, remembering one hospital or another. And even if they don't, the mere fact of comparison articles (and likely outrage from normal people in the comments sections, etc), will create competitive pressure driving prices closer together. At that point, people won't need to search for the specific price for a hospital because all will likely be similar.
TheBiv 8y ago
I believe the theory is that by posting prices online hospitals will become generally regarded as being "expensive" or "inexpensive", which in turn could drive prices down.
mikepurvis 8y ago
It opens the door to third party organizations to do the comparison upfront, and assign different hospitals an overall grade. No one's expecting you to shop around while you're waiting for an ambulance, but a) there are a lot of procedures where you do indeed have some time to think about it upfront (childbirth, most surgeries), having a sense that a particular hospital is overcharging allows social and political pressure to be put on them to normalize.
rdl 8y ago
There are some facilities which already post basically accurate prices online: https://surgerycenterok.com/ https://surgerycenterok.com/ is a great example. If I needed some kind of elective or non-emergency procedure, they would be high on my list (along with medical tourism to foreign countries where procedures are also clearly priced, and even cheaper) I've recently been having pretty good luck going to medical providers and offering cash (I have Kaiser insurance now, which I basically treat as emergency/catastrophic only, since they never cover any providers I'd want to see, so I basically end up paying cash.). I was able to get a dermatologist to go from $600+ to $95 because cash.
- madengr 8y ago
  Only issue I see with that, is that your payments won’t count towards reducing your deductible. $600 vs. $90 is a no brainer though. I ended up dropping dental insurance and just pay cash, even for a family of 4, it is cheaper, assuming the kids brush their teeth.
- vidarh 8y ago
  > (along with medical tourism to foreign countries where procedures are also clearly priced, and even cheaper) The thing that is really bizarre to me is that I've more than once seen people quite prices for non-emergency procedures in the US that are more expensive than taking a business class flight to London, checking into a high end hotel and getting treated at a top private hospital targeting mostly rich people... Of course it's less convenient than being treated near your home, but the difference can be significant.
  - rsynnott 8y ago
    Do such hospitals actually accept non-resident patients from outside the EU for elective stuff? I'm not sure about the UK setup, but in Ireland, private hospitals are able to save costs on the basis that if something goes badly wrong, they can just shunt the patient over to the larger and generally better equipped public hospital, which is often literally next door, at which point the patient become's the state system's problem. For instance, many of them don't have an ICU. This works okay if the patient is resident or is an EU citizen, and so is entitled to be treated by the public system (though it's arguably an effective subsidy of the private system by the public system), but I wouldn't have thought it'd be feasible for non-resident foreign citizens.
kendallpark 8y ago
> A delusional wishful thinking that a patient, while in pain and in need to care, will be shopping and browsing around to see prices, and that would drive prices down. Are you kidding me? If a patient is in so much pain that they can't make rational decisions about their care or feel that their care is urgent enough that they don't have time to look at prices, they should probably be in the ER anyway. For the 95% of patients not in this situation, having tangible pricing will be beneficial. Furthermore, for patients in seriously debilitating conditions, many have caregivers that can look into procedure finances.
xtreme 8y ago
There are a whole lot of treatments different from emergency care. In many of these cases, the patient does not need to go to the hospital immediately and can take the time to go through various options and choose the one suitable for them. In India, almost all private hospitals will provide you with a reasonable estimate of the costs including surgery, medicine, etc. Patients can and do shop around for the hospitals that fit their budget and any other criteria they might have. Of course, they can not be 100% accurate as complications do arise. But they don't need to be, because small differences average out and a reasonably accurate estimate is a far better option compared to no estimate at all.
amluto 8y ago
Dental care more or less already works like this, and I've certainly shopped around for dentists. And optometrists.
49para 8y ago
the Surgery Center of Oklahoma already does this. I'd expect some of these prices are below the deductable of many plans or at least much less than you would get charged if you went to another hospital without insurance. https://surgerycenterok.com/pricing/ https://surgerycenterok.com/pricing/
- bigtex 8y ago
  I am glad someone posted this link. They are been at the forefront in regard to pricing transparency.

adamnemecek 8y ago

It depends on the patient and the procedure. It will keep them honest tho, like if the hospital charges 10x what the next one does, you can ask some questions.

bkohlmann 8y ago

While you are right about in the moment decision making, this is a welcome change. What will likely happen is that aggregators / bloggers / journalists will start comparing prices and write about the differences. People will see the articles. And in a moment of crisis, they'll potentially think about the ones they read about, remembering one hospital or another. And even if they don't, the mere fact of comparison articles (and likely outrage from normal people in the comments sections, etc), will create competitive pressure driving prices closer together. At that point, people won't need to search for the specific price for a hospital because all will likely be similar.

TheBiv 8y ago

I believe the theory is that by posting prices online hospitals will become generally regarded as being "expensive" or "inexpensive", which in turn could drive prices down.

mikepurvis 8y ago

It opens the door to third party organizations to do the comparison upfront, and assign different hospitals an overall grade. No one's expecting you to shop around while you're waiting for an ambulance, but a) there are a lot of procedures where you do indeed have some time to think about it upfront (childbirth, most surgeries), having a sense that a particular hospital is overcharging allows social and political pressure to be put on them to normalize.

rdl 8y ago

There are some facilities which already post basically accurate prices online: https://surgerycenterok.com/ https://surgerycenterok.com/ is a great example. If I needed some kind of elective or non-emergency procedure, they would be high on my list (along with medical tourism to foreign countries where procedures are also clearly priced, and even cheaper) I've recently been having pretty good luck going to medical providers and offering cash (I have Kaiser insurance now, which I basically treat as emergency/catastrophic only, since they never cover any providers I'd want to see, so I basically end up paying cash.). I was able to get a dermatologist to go from $600+ to $95 because cash.

madengr 8y ago
Only issue I see with that, is that your payments won’t count towards reducing your deductible. $600 vs. $90 is a no brainer though. I ended up dropping dental insurance and just pay cash, even for a family of 4, it is cheaper, assuming the kids brush their teeth.
vidarh 8y ago
> (along with medical tourism to foreign countries where procedures are also clearly priced, and even cheaper) The thing that is really bizarre to me is that I've more than once seen people quite prices for non-emergency procedures in the US that are more expensive than taking a business class flight to London, checking into a high end hotel and getting treated at a top private hospital targeting mostly rich people... Of course it's less convenient than being treated near your home, but the difference can be significant.
- rsynnott 8y ago
  Do such hospitals actually accept non-resident patients from outside the EU for elective stuff? I'm not sure about the UK setup, but in Ireland, private hospitals are able to save costs on the basis that if something goes badly wrong, they can just shunt the patient over to the larger and generally better equipped public hospital, which is often literally next door, at which point the patient become's the state system's problem. For instance, many of them don't have an ICU. This works okay if the patient is resident or is an EU citizen, and so is entitled to be treated by the public system (though it's arguably an effective subsidy of the private system by the public system), but I wouldn't have thought it'd be feasible for non-resident foreign citizens.

kendallpark 8y ago

> A delusional wishful thinking that a patient, while in pain and in need to care, will be shopping and browsing around to see prices, and that would drive prices down. Are you kidding me? If a patient is in so much pain that they can't make rational decisions about their care or feel that their care is urgent enough that they don't have time to look at prices, they should probably be in the ER anyway. For the 95% of patients not in this situation, having tangible pricing will be beneficial. Furthermore, for patients in seriously debilitating conditions, many have caregivers that can look into procedure finances.

xtreme 8y ago

There are a whole lot of treatments different from emergency care. In many of these cases, the patient does not need to go to the hospital immediately and can take the time to go through various options and choose the one suitable for them. In India, almost all private hospitals will provide you with a reasonable estimate of the costs including surgery, medicine, etc. Patients can and do shop around for the hospitals that fit their budget and any other criteria they might have. Of course, they can not be 100% accurate as complications do arise. But they don't need to be, because small differences average out and a reasonably accurate estimate is a far better option compared to no estimate at all.

amluto 8y ago

Dental care more or less already works like this, and I've certainly shopped around for dentists. And optometrists.

49para 8y ago

the Surgery Center of Oklahoma already does this. I'd expect some of these prices are below the deductable of many plans or at least much less than you would get charged if you went to another hospital without insurance. https://surgerycenterok.com/pricing/ https://surgerycenterok.com/pricing/

bigtex 8y ago
I am glad someone posted this link. They are been at the forefront in regard to pricing transparency.