4 ms·

Just like the problems with pay transparency / publishing in job listings, what good is the publishing of hospital costs, if they inflate the rack rate prices t

Just like the problems with pay transparency / publishing in job listings, what good is the publishing of hospital costs, if they inflate the rack rate prices to handle people who walk in without insurance, but discount everyone else to the Medicare rates? It doesn't give you any real comparable reference point between hospitals, does it? As an example, you get a bill for $100k for a one-night hospital visit for an emergency, but it gets knocked down to $15,000 at Medicare reimbursement rates, and then you only pay $1,000. Which price should be shown? It is any use to show the $100k figure? Or am I missing something that has changed? I mean, I'm all for these efforts but if there is no consistency / meaning behind the numbers being used, it's no good.

jaan 4y ago
You're right! We're linking this data to the negiotated rates :) and building the search engine for both of these at payless.health.
- supernova87a 4y ago
  Thank you!
rjh29 4y ago
Eh? So even with insurance you pay $1000 for one night in hospital in the US? Or are you just making up an example figure here.
sl-dolt 4y ago
I'm the author of the article. The inflated price you're talking about is called the "gross price." It's a made-up price, or MSRP. Just publishing this price list isn't that helpful. The price lists are supposed to contain the negotiated rates with different insurance companies or medicare. Those reflect the rates that your insurance company pays. You pay some fraction of that depending on your plan. Most price lists don't contain this information, though. The purpose of the article was to see how many of them contain the elements that are required from the transparency bill, the ones which allow meaningful price comparison between hospitals. And the answer is... not that many do. But among the ones that do, you can kinda sorta make a meaningful comparison (but there are even caveats there as well.) Feel free to follow up if you have more questions.

jaan 4y ago

You're right! We're linking this data to the negiotated rates :) and building the search engine for both of these at payless.health.

supernova87a 4y ago
Thank you!

rjh29 4y ago

Eh? So even with insurance you pay $1000 for one night in hospital in the US? Or are you just making up an example figure here.

sl-dolt 4y ago

I'm the author of the article. The inflated price you're talking about is called the "gross price." It's a made-up price, or MSRP. Just publishing this price list isn't that helpful. The price lists are supposed to contain the negotiated rates with different insurance companies or medicare. Those reflect the rates that your insurance company pays. You pay some fraction of that depending on your plan. Most price lists don't contain this information, though. The purpose of the article was to see how many of them contain the elements that are required from the transparency bill, the ones which allow meaningful price comparison between hospitals. And the answer is... not that many do. But among the ones that do, you can kinda sorta make a meaningful comparison (but there are even caveats there as well.) Feel free to follow up if you have more questions.