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- Hub Research Brief (June 2018)
Revealing the Truth About Healthcare Price Transparency - Hub: Evidence on Transparency Initiatives
- Hub: Evidence on Publicly Reporting Quality Measures
- Hub Webinar (December 2018)
Driving Healthcare Transparency with Actionable Resources - HonestHealth
Healthcare Transparency Tool - Altarum (April 2019)
Consumer-Centric Evaluation of Healthcare Price and Quality Transparency Tools - NEJM Catalyst (June 2018)
Defining the Goals of Health Care Price Transparency: Not Just Shopping Around
Improving Value
Price Transparency
Price transparency is often touted as a vital component of a high functioning healthcare system—and with good reason. Price transparency is instrumental to keeping consumers safe in the healthcare marketplace by allowing them to judge affordability and plan for the expense of needed healthcare services. It also enables state policymakers to address unwarranted price variation and, in some cases, can incentivize high cost providers to lower their prices to align more closely with industry rates.
Despite its merits, price transparency is also inappropriately credited for its ability to make markets more efficient. Most notably, consumer-facing price transparency tools have generally not been successful when it comes to incentivizing consumers to compare services and shop for the best price.
Increasing the effectiveness of price transparency will require a nuanced understanding of its strengths and limitations with respect to each audience using the information: patients, policymakers, regulators and providers. This Hub Research Brief discusses the opportunities and limitations of price transparency and explores its uses by stakeholder group.
- Health Affairs: Online Advertising Increased New Hampshire Residents' Use of Provider Price Tool But Not Use of Lower-Price Providers (March 2021).
- Catalyst for Payment Reform: 2020 Report Card on State Price Transparency Laws (May 5, 2020).
- Practice Management News: Healthcare Price Transparency in New Hampshire Reduced Out-of-Pocket Costs (Feb. 11, 2019).
- Health Affairs blog: The Next Chapter in Transparency: Maryland's Wear the Cost (Oct. 19, 2017)
- Maryland's Wear the Cost website
- Health Affairs: Examining a Healthcare Price Transparency Tool: Who Uses it, and How They Shop for Care
- JAMA Editorial: Healthcare Transparency and Economic Theory
- LA Times: California fails at giving patients actual medical prices, report shows
- Boston Globe: Inurers asked to improve health cost websites
- Public Agenda: Still Searching: How People Use Health Care Price Information in the U.S. (March 17, 2017).
HEALTHCARE VALUE HUB
The Healthcare Value Hub can help you find free, timely information about policies and practices to achieve health systems that are equitable, affordable, and focused on the goals and needs of the people the system is meant to serve.
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