Jeanne Pinder – The Health Care Blog

Men, Women and Health Care Pricing Theory: Speaking Different Languages

Jun 9, 2016• 20

By JEANNE PINDER

flying cadeucii Men and women in the United States think very differently about health care costs. When I talk about the topic, it’s common for me to see half of my listeners zoning out — the male half. Why? Well, because women make or influence 90 percent of the health care decisions in this country, according to a study by the American Academy of Family Physicians. Of course, men go to the doctor. But they make fewer health care decisions, and they don’t think about pricing the same way women do.

Women are more in touch with health care pricing and more affected by it than men. Women own reproductive health. Women make pediatricians’ appointments and run elder care. Women nag their spouses, be those spouses husbands or wives or none of the above, to get their cholesterol checked, to pick up a prescription, to go to that physical therapy appointment.

So when we talk about shopping for health care, about our business, we’ve grown accustomed to having dudes say “Hm, interesting, can we talk about wearable devices?” or “We have some big data, we’re not really interested in the prices.” At the same time, women tell us how excited they are that we’re attacking opacity in health care pricing.

Yes, People Shop for Health care. But are they Good at it?

Nov 19, 2015• 16

By JEANNE PINDER

We used to hear “no one shops for health care.” But we know that not to be true;here’s a blog post I wrote about how people are doing just that.

So, now that we know they do shop, do they do it well? That’s a good question too.

A recent study from some Berkeley economists found that people on high deductible plans don’t shop well. Sarah Kliff, writing about it in Vox, says the study “shows that when faced with a higher deductible, patients did not price shop for a better deal. Instead, both healthy and sick patients simply used way less health care.”

I read the paper, by Zarek C. Brot-Goldberg, Amitabh Chandra, Benjamin R. Handel and Jonathan T. Kolstad, and had some questions and thoughts: First, the company studied has relatively well-paid workers — “employees at the firm are relatively high income (median income $125,000-$150,000),” we are told. Higher income=Less price sensitivity.

Also, we know women shop more for health care and men shop less; women make 80 to 90 percent of the health care decisions in the U.S., and they are deeply in touch with this issue, while men aren’t. I did not see a gender breakdown in the methodology. So I wonder: Men or women?

Also, we learn that workers got tools to use to assess care, but we don’t see those tools — and believe me, I have seen some terrible ones. For example, here’s a post from one of our partners, Elana Gordon at WHYY public radio in Philadelphia, about how bad one insurer’s tools were for one couple.

Also, we don’t know what kind of education on their new system the workers got, so it’s a little bit murky (though the original study is incredibly long).

What If Restaurant Bills Looked Like Hospital Bills?

Mar 15, 2015• 8

By THCB MD

You’d get something like this:

HAT TIP: Jeanne Pinder. WHHY Philadelphia. Learn more about Pinder and her project here.

How Much Does an MRI Cost In California: $255? $973.25? $2,925?

Aug 6, 2014• 74

By JEANNE PINDER

Early results from our California crowdsourcing project on MRI prices are in. Payments range from $255 to $2,925.15. MRI pricing is a complete mystery: What should you pay? Can you ask for a discount? We’ve been looking at health-care prices for three years, so if we say it’s a mystery, we can imagine what it looks like to you.

How much should you pay? Well, one person was told the price is $1,850, but if you pay up front, you can save almost $1,300.

The note on our form, shared by our community member: “I was told procedure would be 1850. I have a 7500 deductible. So I talked to the office mgr who said if I paid upfront and agreed not to report the procedure to Blue Cross, that it would be $580.”

On our Facebook page, one contributor wrote, “I was going to be billed $830 through my PPO for an MRI. The cash price? $500.”

This is the second part of our crowdsourcing project in California with KQED public radio in San Francisco and KPCC/Southern California Public Radio in Los Angeles. We have been asking people to share pricing information for MRI’s, especially of the back; last month we collected mammogram pricing.

A note: We are often asked in this crowdsourcing prototype project if we believe what we are being told by people who fill out our online form at the PriceCheck page. The answer: yes, we do. Though some of our community members have said their bills are confusing, or the coding they see on the bills doesn’t match what we’re collecting, we believe our contributors’ shares. We have seen wide variations in health-care pricing.

So: here are early results.

Lower-back MRI: $255? $602.85? $973.25? $1,660?

Eight identical MRI’s, and eight vastly different payments.

No. 1: We heard from one Kaiser member, who received an MRI of the lower back, without contrast or dye (CPT code 72148) at the Kaiser Antioch Medical Center on Sand Creek Road in Antioch, Calif. This person was charged $973.25 and paid $973.25; insurance paid nothing.Comment: “This price was the contracted amount through my insurance. Deductible had not been met so I was responsible for all charges. This does not include the two office visits required to obtain and analyze the results.”

No. 2: Same kind of MRI, code 72148, at Radnet Medical Imaging at 3440 California St. in San Francisco. This person was charged $1,660 and paid $1,660, out of HSA funds. (Note: Our ClearHealthCosts pricing survey included that Radnet location, and they did tell our survey agent that their cash price is $1,660.)