Highlights from this week's Healthcare Transparency News, Studies, and Articles:
New York’s public hospitals must compete to survive, CEO says
[By: Melanie Evans, modernhealthcare.com]
Dr. Ramanathan Raju, CEO of the New York City Health and Hospitals Corp., said … that the organization’s financial stability will depend on its ability to win over patients. “In this new environment, the marketplace will dictate and decide which hospitals will remain open, which hospitals will struggle and which hospitals will close.”
A push for transparency in healthcare pricing
[By: Dan Gorenstein, Marketplace]
…when it comes to health care, an industry we spend $3 trillion dollars a year on, prices often remain a mystery. Some people say that genuine cost transparency would make some of the waste and price variations vanish.
New Campaign to Advocate for Healthcare Transparency
[By: PR Newswire]
[Clear Choices Campaign’s] members include consumer advocates, insurers, pharmaceutical companies, employers, and doctor groups … committed to empowering consumers with the information needed to make wise healthcare decisions…
Anthem CEO: Insurers must ‘pivot’ to win loyalty
[By: The Tennessean]
“We believe we are moving into a retail world so that our customers … are having to make choices, … and so we have to be responsive,” [Joseph Swedish, CEO of health insurer Anthem] said. “We need to build loyalty on a brand they respect. That is retail behavior, not a traditional environment in a (business-to-business) world.”
How did hospital bills get so complicated?
[By: , LA Times]
Billing has evolved continually over the last century, but rising costs and changes in insurance reimbursement during the 1980s — still central themes in today’s healthcare market — take center stage in this story.
What’s New in Health Care Cost Transparency?
[By: Chris Duke, Altarum Institute]
Recent Developments in Health Care Cost Transparency
Cost of cancer drugs varies widely based on who’s paying
[By: MedicalXpress.com]
Uninsured cancer patients are asked to pay anywhere from two to 43 times what Medicare would pay for chemotherapy drugs, according to a new study from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
3 major challenges of healthcare price transparency
[By: , Beckers Healthcare]
The lack of price transparency in healthcare threatens to erode public trust in our healthcare system, but this erosion can be stopped.
Virginia Mason Medical Center embraces price transparency
[By: , Healthcare Finance]
Seattle’s Virginia Mason Medical Center is now disclosing estimated prices for its 100 most common outpatient surgical procedures, and posting it for the public online. … “Changes in health insurance plans often mean individuals are paying higher out-of-pocket costs for healthcare services,” said Steve Schaefer, Virginia Mason’s vice president of finance. “Understandably, they are looking ever more closely at cost…”
What’s So Interesting About Atlantic’s Huge Health Care Give
[By: Kiersten Marek, Inside Philanthropy]
The Atlantic Philanthropies … just made a massive five-year $14.8 million grant to the Boston-based nonprofit, Community Catalyst, with the goal of empowering consumers—especially among vulnerable populations—to transform health care systems in ways that improve care, expand access, and reduce costs.
NY law that protects consumers from surprise medical bills takes effect today
[By: , syracuse.com]
A new state law designed to protect New York consumers from getting hit with surprise medical bills from doctors and other providers … took effect today. … “We have seen thousands of cases where consumers who had done everything right and tried to stay in network still got socked with huge, surprise, out-of-network medical bills,” said Benjamin Lawsky, the state’s superintendent of financial services. … The law treats consumers as if they stayed in-network.
Healthgrades names top hospitals for patient experience, patient safety
[By:
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