A proposal was issued by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) on July 29, 2019 stating that hospitals must make public the payer-negotiated price for 300 common shoppable […]

Do patients have the right to know the price of healthcare services before they receive them? This is the question that the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) is […]

As of January 1, 2019, hospitals must post their prices on the internet for patients to review. The intent is to provide patients with price transparency and allow them to […]

In my last blog, I commented on being overcharged by my PBM for a medication that had been removed from their formulary – allegedly because the FDA pulled some old […]

The healthcare industry (like every other) has often used catch words and phrases: Patient empowerment, population health, electronic interoperability, pay-for-performance, quality metrics, social factors that affect outcomes, medication compliance, care […]

The Institute of Medicine estimates that 30 percent of healthcare spending is attributed to waste. Waste in health care not only has a financial impact, but also robs patients of […]

The inability for consumers to know the price of healthcare services prior to receiving care has been identified as an impediment to reducing healthcare costs.  Patients equipped with pricing information […]

In 2003, health policy experts Gerard Anderson and Uwe Reinhardt, along with two Johns Hopkins doctoral candidates, published an article in Health Affairs provocatively titled “It’s The Prices, Stupid: Why […]

Two trends are forcing greater consumerism and price sensitivity in health care. One is that Medicare, Medicaid, and some commercial insurance carriers, are starting to show patients and employers the […]

Making available hospital prices – amounts paid to hospitals – has historically been handled with a great deal of caution by policy makers. Fear that hospitals will use posted prices […]