Posted by Michael Wonder on 04 Dec 2017
Finding health care prices online—how difficult is it to be an informed health care consumer?
4 December 2017 - In the US health care system many patients face high out-of-pocket expenses because they either lack insurance or have enrolled in plans that carry high deductibles, coinsurances, or copays.
Although some experts contend these higher expenses will incentivise patients to be savvy shoppers and scrutinise the cost of their care, patients require easy access to health care prices to be cost-conscious consumers.
In this study, we used a systematic approach to describe what consumers find when they search for health care prices online, and to determine the availability of price information for common medical interventions.
