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Can We Tame The Wild West of Health Care Pricing?

Screen Shot 2015-08-27 at 12.22.43 PMHealth care pricing is like the Wild West and it is only a matter of time before it catches up with us. In July, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) confirmed what many consumers, employers and health plans already knew: there is no cost and quality standard in the American health care system.
Improving our system starts with driving payers and consumers to high value providers. But first, we must know who is charging what. Price transparency tools offer that important information, enabling people to actually comparison shop for their health care services.

In early July, CMS released a proposed rule aiming to address price variation by starting with joint replacements. According to CMS, there were more than 400,000 Medicare inpatient joint procedures, resulting in more than $7 billion in hospitalization costs in 2013. The average Medicare expenditure for surgery, hospitalization and recovery ranged from $16,500-$33,000 depending on geography, with widely varying rates of infection and implant failure post-surgery.

To address this variation, CMS outlined a new payment model that would make some hospitals accountable for the costs and quality of care from the time of surgery through 90 days after. Continue reading…