Healthcare Prices Hard to Find Online

“Patients should directly check with their insurers and providers regarding pricing for services,” Kumar says by email.

Cost isn’t necessarily going to be the main factor driving patients’ decisions about health care, says Dr. Karandeep Singh, a researcher at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor who wasn’t involved in the study. Often, patients will decide where to go for care based on which providers are in-network with their insurance, and this might not always include the highest-quality or most affordable providers, Singh said.

“Unfortunately, cost information continues to remain a black box,” Singh says.

Reference

Kratka A, Wong CA, Herrmann R, et al. Finding health care prices online—how difficult is it to be an informed healthcare consumer? JAMA Intern Med. 2017 Dec 4. doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2017.6841

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