Pricing transparency for health care services has longbeen considered a cornerstone of meaningful reform that could drivedown prices.
How do employers know if they're getting good value for theirhealth care spend? How do they encourage their employees to beresponsible health care consumers? Benefitsadvisors help position their clients with cost-effective healthplans, but even within well-constructed networks, prices forservices and procedures can vary wildly depending on where theemployee is treated and by whom.
It's not unusual, for example, to find one claim for $250 andanother for $800 for an identical MRI of two different employees,the only difference being where the MRI was performed. Even worse,the employer and employee never know about the disparity in priceuntil they get the bill. Similar examples are easy to find everyday across the industry. In spite of the best efforts of benefitsadvisors and employers, finding the best possible value for healthcare services remains elusive due to a lack of transparency inpricing. It's impossible to control price variations without theability to look at the price tags.
Chargemaster pricing alone is useless
Pricing transparency for health care services has long beenconsidered a cornerstone of meaningful reform that could drive downprices. Debate about how to best make health care more affordablerages across the industry and in the legislature, but there hasbeen nearly universal agreement that everyone would benefit fromless obscurity around how services are billed and reimbursed.
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