UNC Health Has a New Healthcare Cost Estimator Tool

UNC Health, North Carolina’s largest academic health system, has rolled out its new cost transparency tool via an app and on their website, reports North Carolina Health News. The tool makes it possible for consumers with or without insurance to estimate how much an office visit, simple procedure or inpatient service will cost. The tool results from a new rule from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), effective Jan. 1, 2021, in which all hospitals are required to provide public lists of standard charges for healthcare services in an easily accessible, easily searchable format. Transparency initiatives such as these, however, have had mixed success in getting patients to use them. For example, in 2007 New Hampshire created a website that provided negotiated out-of-pocket costs and negotiated prices for common procedures, but a 2014 study found that only about one percent of patients actually used the service over the course of three years.