Informed Healthcare Consumer? Allison Kratka, Duke University - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Allison Kratka, Duke University School of Medicine

How Hard Is It to be an Informed Healthcare Consumer?

• How accessible are healthcare prices online?
• What is the variation in the prices that are available?

Learning Objective:

When searching for healthcare prices online, consumers lack ready access to price information, and the prices that are available are widely variable.

The Background: Why should we care about price transparency now?

Methods:

• Google + Bing, 4 procedures, 8 cities
• Documented 1st two pages of results
• Classified type of websites
• Identified price availability

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% Procedure

Categories of websites (N= 1346) Unrelated Sites Generic Relevant Information Quality-Only Sites Single Provider/Clinic Sites Price Transparency Sites

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100% Upper GI endoscopy Brain MRI Cholesterol panel Hip replacement Overall

% of results with geographically relevant price

21.3%

The Evidence:

20.5% 23.8% 3.4% 17%

Methods:

The Evidence: Health care prices in New York City

Site:

Fair Health Consumer Healthcare Blue Book Guroo Spotlight Clear Health Costs Amino New Choice Health NH Health Cost Hip Replace- ment

$53,183 $50,215 $44,747 $4,179 $1,888 No info No info No info

Upper GI Endoscopy

$7,180 $2,402 $2,616 $869 $138 $3,364 $950 No info

Sources of price information:

• All payer claims databases
• Medicare databases
• Crowd-sourced information
• Insurer-provided claims data

• Healthcare prices are hard for consumers to

find online, and when available, prices are widely variable

• Price transparency is not keeping up with the

current healthcare landscape, making it harder for patients to be savvy healthcare consumers.

Why This Matters:

Health Policy Implications:

• All-payer claims

databases

• State or federally-run

price transparency websites

• Identify best practices

for providing consumer- centric prices

• Peter Ubel, MD and Charlene Wong, MD
• Riley Herrmann, BA, Kathryn Hong, BA, Aleena Karediya, BA, Iris Yang, and Annabel

Wong, BS.

• Email: allison.kratka@duke.edu

Thank you!