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Forget undercover boss; try undercover shopper.
A new study from researchers in the US and Canada found that prices for vaginal childbirth and brain MRIs (interesting picks, we thought) varied dramatically between what’s posted online and what the hospital tells a patient over the phone.
For the study, “secret shoppers” collected cash prices for those procedures at 60 hospitals across the US, including top-ranked and safety net institutions, between August and October 2022.
Of the 60 hospitals surveyed, 22 listed prices online and gave over-the-phone estimates for a vaginal birth. Prices at ten of those hospitals differed by 25%, while nine hospitals had a difference of 50% or more between online and phone healthcare costs, according to the study. Online prices for a vaginal birth at a top-ranked hospital ranged from $0 to $55,221, with a mean of $23,040, the study found.
For brain MRI scans, 47 hospitals provided costs for the procedure both online and over the phone, and of these, 31 hospitals reported price discrepancies up to 25%, while 12 facilities had a 50% or higher variation between the two costs, the study found.
“Moreover, prices for the same services vary wildly across different hospitals even in the same city. Anywhere from a 30% to 100% difference in price,” Vivian Ho, study coauthor and Rice University’s James Baker III Institute chair in health economics, said in a statement.
The research highlights the shortcomings of a 2021 Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) hospital price transparency rule, which requires facilities “to provide clear, accessible pricing information online about the items and services” they offer.
To date, CMS has fined 14 hospitals a total of $4.6 million in noncompliance fees, including two fines issued this month. The agency can fine hospitals up to $2 million for failing to post a list online of standard charges for all items and services for all payers, as well as a list of at least 300 common procedures a patient “can schedule in advance” with correlating price estimates.
In July, CMS proposed updated requirements to increase hospital price transparency. The proposed requirements would standardize required pricing data that hospitals would need to make public, in an effort to make reporting “more comparable between facilities” and finding the prices on hospital websites easier, KFF Health News reported last month.
The proposed updates would require hospitals to comply by March 1, 2024, according to CMS.
The study’s researchers also pointed out that their findings “highlight the continued challenges for uninsured patients and others who attempt to comparison shop for healthcare.”
“Transparency is critical to changing the trajectory of healthcare costs in this country,” Mark Cuban, who coauthored the study, said in a statement. “Our paper shows that while some progress has been made in hospital transparency, we still have a ways to go.”