A consortium of major employers and unions has partnered with non-profit group Catalyst for Payment Reform (pdf), demanding that hospitals and health insurers make healthcare price information more readily available for their employees by 2014.
"Consumers are being asked to pay more as healthcare costs rise," said Suzanne Delbanco, PhD, executive director of CPR, in a news release. "They have a growing number of resources that are beginning to help them compare healthcare providers for differences in quality, but few to none that help them compare prices."
Groups that have endorsed the statement include the AFL-CIO, the National Business Coalition on Health, The Leapfrog Group, CalPERs and more than 20 major companies such as Boeing, Walmart, Walt Disney, Delta and General Electric.
The groups' statement on price transparency in healthcare included four parts:
• Consumers must have meaningful information about healthcare prices and quality.
• Hospitals, physicians, health plans and others must make that information available.
• Self-insured employers should be able to use their claims data to develop their own health plan benefit designs.
• Current antitrust laws must be enforced to ensure providers and health plans don't use price data in an anticompetitive manner.
"Consumers are being asked to pay more as healthcare costs rise," said Suzanne Delbanco, PhD, executive director of CPR, in a news release. "They have a growing number of resources that are beginning to help them compare healthcare providers for differences in quality, but few to none that help them compare prices."
Groups that have endorsed the statement include the AFL-CIO, the National Business Coalition on Health, The Leapfrog Group, CalPERs and more than 20 major companies such as Boeing, Walmart, Walt Disney, Delta and General Electric.
The groups' statement on price transparency in healthcare included four parts:
• Consumers must have meaningful information about healthcare prices and quality.
• Hospitals, physicians, health plans and others must make that information available.
• Self-insured employers should be able to use their claims data to develop their own health plan benefit designs.
• Current antitrust laws must be enforced to ensure providers and health plans don't use price data in an anticompetitive manner.
More Articles on Healthcare Price Transparency:
7 Characteristics of Continuously Learning Healthcare Systems
9 Current Employer Healthcare Spending Trends
Hospital Price Disparities Draw Ire, Scrutiny From Public