Friday, June 11, 2010

Bringing Comparison Shopping to the Doctor’s Office - NYTimes.com

I’m surprised this didn’t happen sooner

Price transparency could significantly change the way health care is bought in the United States. The notion “seems ridiculously simple and obvious, and in any other industry, you would say, ‘Duh, we already have that.’ But in health care, it’s revolutionary,” said Alan M. Garber, a professor of medicine and the director of the center for health policy at Stanford, as well as an investor in Castlight.

The lack of price information in health care has been a big driver of ballooning health care costs, analysts say, because costs are opaque to patients and heavily subsidized by employers. The patient has no incentive or responsibility to keep costs down. But many employers are switching to health plans that require patients to pay more out of their own pockets.

Bringing Comparison Shopping to the Doctor’s Office - NYTimes.com

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