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

How Hard Is It to be an Informed Healthcare Consumer? Allison Kratka, Duke University School of Medicine

Learning Objective:  How accessible are healthcare prices online?  What is the variation in the prices that are available? 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 1 st two pages of results • Classified type of websites • Identified price availability

Categories of websites (N= 1346) 100% 90% 80% Unrelated Sites 70% 60% 50% Generic Relevant 40% Information 30% 20% Quality-Only Sites 10% 0% Single Provider/Clinic Sites Price Transparency Sites Procedure

The Evidence: % of results with geographically relevant price 100% 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 23.8% 21.3% 20.5% 17% 20% 3.4% 10% 0% Upper GI Brain MRI Cholesterol Hip replacement Overall endoscopy panel

Methods:

The Evidence: Health care prices in New York City Site: Fair Health Healthcare Guroo Spotlight Clear Health Amino New Choice NH Health Consumer Blue Book Costs Health Cost Hip Replace- $53,183 $50,215 $44,747 $4,179 $1,888 No info No info No info ment Upper GI $7,180 $2,402 $2,616 $869 $138 $3,364 $950 No info Endoscopy Sources of price information: • All payer claims databases • Medicare databases • Crowd-sourced information • Insurer-provided claims data

Why This Matters:  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.

Health Policy Implications:  All-payer claims databases  State or federally-run price transparency websites  Identify best practices for providing consumer- centric prices

Thank you!  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