People looking for health care coverage aren’t using price transparency tools to shop around forcheaper providers. Instead, says a new study, they use them to planfor out-of-pocket expenses.

The Accenture study, reportsModern Healthcare, gives the lie to the claim that consumers willshop around for the cheapest providers if they know the pricebefore obtaining care. Instead, it finds that 46 percent check outpricing to be able to set aside money to meet out-of-pocketexpenses; only 11 percent do it to compare prices.

The study also finds that about 60 percent of health careconsumers said they’d go to their provider of choice even if theyknow how much it will cost before they actually get care.

“This study really revealed for providers that the majority ofpatients are going to go ahead with the service and just want theinformation,” Jean-Pierre Stephan, managing director of Accenture,says in the report. Stephan adds, “This is how we in the industryneed to think about price transparency, instead of assuming thispricing information is going to result in shopping like otherindustries, this starts to give an indication that there are otherdrivers from a consumer perspective.”

Stephan adds that instead of price shopping, consumers choosehealth care providers based on other factors: convenient locations, in-network service andreferrals from their primary care doctors, family or friends.

But depending on the health care provider, consumers may be moreor less loyal. About 40 percent of respondents said they’d look forcheaper dental care, while 35 percent would do so for vision care.When it comes to chronic conditions, just 15 percent said they’dchoose based on cost, and only 13 percent would price shop for asurgical procedure.

That doesn’t mean they aren’t worried about the cost of care;about 33 percent of those insured under employer-sponsored healthplans said they were concerned about affordability, compared with61 percent of uninsured respondents. And the rise ofhigh-deductible health plans and cost-sharing is driving moreconsumers to find out the bad news in advance; approximately 91percent said they want to know their out-of-pocket costs beforeservices.

But providers aren’t helping all that much, whether patients areinsured or not; of the 49 percent of consumers who knew theirout-of-pocket costs, only 25 percent got the information from theirprovider.