Non-profit company RAND decided to “secret shop” 353 California hospitals to see if they were following the law regarding hospitals and price transparency. This California state law (AB 1045) was enacted in 2006.
Only 28% of hospitals in the survey responded – and their responses were seriously lacking… Apparently “not-for-profit hospitals responded to the letters at higher rates than for-profit hospitals,” California Healthline reports.
Hospitals seem to be slow to join us on PriceDoc as well. Many states are now requiring price transparency and hospitals are putting together teams specifically to answer those questions. Some hospitals even have a pricing sheet available on their websites… however, others are posting just the simple stuff that the government is requiring, but without explanations or descriptions (which is simply overwhelming) and of course, these prices are “estimates that are subject to change”.
The fact is, price transparency with hospitals (and working with PriceDoc) might work for outpatients, but probably less for patients who are actually admitted… because everything inside a hospital is billed separately. PriceDoc is procedure based, not care based. If you go to the hospital for heart surgery, that will be only one cost out of a bunch of things. But if you go for a flu shot, that cost could easily be displayed.
Do you have sympathy for these hospitals? Have you ever dealt with the bureaucracy or insane amounts of paperwork? Is it reasonable to require them to know exactly what everything will cost?
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This is not surprising, Hospials are known as “hiders” in the medical community. They hide behind departments and billers and now price lists. We have all mouthed off about how it costs $20 for a box of tissue in the hospital. They can’t possible reveal those costs, consumers would rebel and the hospitals would be exposed. And what happens to that 1/2 a ox of tissue when you leave? Do they give it to someone else and bill them as well? That would be double dipping!
Sherry Krueger