Click here to read the full PDF of “The Price is Right” policy brief.
Introduction
Price transparency is consistently the single most popular polled healthcare reform, regularly garnering 90 percent public support.
Focusing on price transparency also makes sense from a policy perspective, as underlying price increases have accounted for upwards of two-thirds of total healthcare spending growth, which leads to higher health insurance premiums each year.
Florida can be the national leader in price transparency. The state has a solid foundation upon which to build, but more is needed to help patients afford needed care, and to help Florida companies remain competitive.
As an analogy for price transparency, Florida patients are like high-performance cars. Without the right fuel they can’t move quickly, and without a gas pedal, a steering wheel, and roads that are easy to navigate they can’t drive in the right direction. Pricing data is fuel for that car. System-wide price transparency is required to allow pricing tools to be the steering wheel for a patient, and the right financial incentives for patients allow them to push down the gas pedal. Patients also need lots of roads to get where they need to go, which in healthcare is access to high-quality but lower-cost providers regardless of network status. You need all these elements to move the car and start to save money in healthcare.
Right now, Florida law has different kinds of cans of fuel sitting around the car, with an optional gas pedal, limited and mostly expensive roads for those with insurance, and information is not available from all providers to ensure patients can access a good steering wheel/price transparency tools.
Read “The Price is Right: Promoting Greater Transparency in Healthcare” here.
