GAO Highlights Lack of Meaningful Health Care Pricing Information for Consumers
The GAO has issued a report entitled, “Health Care Price Transparency: Meaningful Price Information is Difficult for Consumers to Obtain Prior to Receiving Care.” According to the GAO, consumer difficulties in obtaining meaningful medical pricing information stem from both health care factors (such as the difficulty of predicting health care services in advance, billing from multiple providers, and various insurance benefit structures) and legal factors that may prevent the disclosure of negotiated rates between insurers and providers that could be used to estimate consumers' complete health care costs. While a number of public and private price transparency initiatives are underway, the types of information available to consumers vary. The GAO recommends that HHS determine the feasibility of making estimates of complete costs of health care services available to consumers as part of its transparency initiatives.
