Patients are looking for healthcare price transparency?

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Patients are looking for healthcare price
transparency?
70 percent of consumers in a Pioneer
Institute survey said they would like to know
information on provider pricing, yet half of them
said they were not aware of seeking the
information despite healthcare price transparency
laws.   Many consumers living in a state with
some of the most comprehensive healthcare price
transparency laws have never thought to get the
information about provider services pricing.   Why
consumers never tried to find the price of
healthcare services? Almost 17 percent of the
500 adults in Massachusetts surveyed for the
Pioneer Institute said they thought prices would
be the same regardless, and 54 percent said they
never thought of trying to obtain price
information about healthcare services. 12 percent
were thought that pricing information would be
too complicated to obtain. 10 percent of
consumers didnt know how to obtain pricing
information. 2 percent were embarrassed to ask
for pricing information to the provider. 12
percent consumers were not aware that they could
get this pricing information.
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Patients are looking for healthcare price
transparency?
Finding healthcare prices The survey found that
only one in five Massachusetts consumers had
ever tried to find pricing information before
date of service. Its not like that they are not
interested to know this information, rather, it
looks like consumers do not know they have a
right to get pricing information under the state
law and they do not know how to access it. About
7 in 10 consumers do not know insurance carriers
have price estimator tools that they can use to
get the pricing information. The majority of
consumers said that they never thought of trying
to get the healthcare pricing information from
the insurance company. Moreover, the
state-required insurance carriers to offer
consumers with out-of-pocket cost details in
real-time through online cost estimator tools and
via a toll-free number. If you opt for our
outsourced medical billing services, then you and
your patients will not have any pricing
information issues as we do eligibility
verification prior to patient visits to the
provider office. This way providers can inform
patients in advance about their out-of-pocket
information.
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Patients are looking for healthcare price
transparency?
However, a gap remains between the goals of
healthcare price transparency laws, which include
strengthening patients to shop for the best
quality, low-cost healthcare services, and real
consumer behavior, the Boston-based think tank
found. According to Barbara Anthony, the
reports lead author and senior fellow in
healthcare policy at the Pioneer Institute,
Consumers say they want price information, but
only a small portion of people know they have
access to it. The gap between aspirations and the
ability to actually obtain price information must
be filled. Consumer Price Information
Awareness Providers and healthcare organization
administrators should be trained to provide
consumers about pricing information and guide
them navigate insurer cost estimator tools, the
policy experts suggested. Provider admin staff
also need to be ready to give patients referrals
to specialists or tests based on the prices of
the services, they added.
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Patients are looking for healthcare price
transparency?
Price Transparency Pain Point Many healthcare
providers think that healthcare price
transparency has been a pain point, many of them
believe health insurers should be more
accountable for delivering transparency since
consumers require out-of-pocket cost estimates
and not actual price information. Provide
pricing information can be easy if providers and
payers collaborate in order to deliver
out-of-pocket cost estimates in addition to the
fees provider charge uninsured patients and
payers for the services.