Acute Confusion

Patients deserve to know the price of their care before getting treatment. With hospital prices rising, and now making up one-third of all health care spending, it is even more important that patients can compare hospital prices in advance of care. To give patients more buying power and improve price competition, federal rules and a Texas law implemented hospital price transparency requirements. Hospitals are required to post cash and insured prices for their 300 most common shoppable services in a “consumer-friendly” format.

This report is a case study of compliance by multiple hospitals within 20 miles of downtown Dallas. 

We looked for online prices at 19 hospitals that offered total knee arthroplasty surgery, a common procedure.  We analyzed the two types of posted prices for the surgery:  for a self-paying patient (uninsured) and for one type of insurance.

Highlights of our hospital price transparency findings 

1. Almost all (17 of 19 hospitals) offered the required “price transparency” link on their hospital website homepage.
2. Almost all (17 of 19) hospitals provided an online price for self-paying customers. 
3. Thirteen of the 19 hospitals provided an online insured price. However, four of these hospitals provided what appeared to be an unreliable price as the tool indicated the patient would pay $0 for the surgery.
4. Four hospitals required the patient to call the hospital for at least one price, rather than offer an online price as required. 
5. When prices are provided, significant savings can be found by comparison shopping. For knee arthroplasty, a self-pay patient could save more than $150,000 and an insured patient could save more than $2,800. 

Hospital price transparency is an important consumer tool

Our survey underscores the power of hospital price transparency to help consumers find the best prices. But it is still difficult for patients to find prices at every hospital in their area and to effectively compare those prices.

Price transparency is essential for patients to have an accurate representation of what they’re going to be billed. Price transparency pages should be easy to navigate on the hospital’s website and provide accurate prices for self-pay and insured patients.  Hospital price transparency, if fully enforced, could help patients save money. Texas should increase enforcement and Congress should expand the federal rule to require price transparency in more health care settings.

###  To read our findings on hospital price transparency in Cleveland, Ohio area hospitals, check out our Post the Price report. ###