Hospitals in the United States may quote vastly different prices for their services—depending on how you find that information, according to a new study published in the JAMA Internal Medicine.
—safety-net hospitals typically provide care to individuals regardless of their ability to pay.
For vaginal childbirth, 63% of top-ranked hospitals were able to provide both online and phone prices compared with 30% of safety-net hospitals and 21% for non-top-ranked, non-safety-net hospitals. For brain MRI, 85% of the top-ranked hospitals and 100% of the non-top-ranked, non-safety-net hospitals were able to provide both online and telephone prices, but only 50% of safety-net hospitals were able to do so.
"There were multiple hospitals with online prices that were greater than $20,000 , but telephone prices of less than $10,000," the report reads."For brain MRI, two hospitals provided telephone prices of more than $5,000 when their online prices were approximately $2,000." The findings of the study demonstrate hospitals' continued problems in knowing and communicating their prices for specific services.
"Transparency is critical to changing the trajectory of health care costs in this country," said Mark Cuban, one of the co-authors of the study."Our paper shows that while some progress has been made in hospital transparency, we still have a ways to go."Merina Thomas et al, Comparison of Hospital Online Price and Telephone Price for Shoppable Services,
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