Feb 20, 2015 | Coding, Billing, and Collections, Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology, Management & Operations
NPR stations in San Francisco and Los Angeles crowdsourced healthcare cost data from listeners to reveal arbitrary pricing of medical services
Over the past two years, Dark Daily has published a number of stories dealing with price transparency, or lack of it, most of which involved government agencies or nonprofits concerned about the high cost of healthcare services. This latest effort to shine a light on healthcare pricing, however, comes from National Public Radio (NPR).
San Francisco’s NPR station, KQED, initiated PriceCheck, an innovative project designed to reveal just how arbitrary medical pricing is in California, in June 2014. KQED partnered with Los Angeles’ NPR station, KPCC, and ClearHealthCosts.com, a New York City start-up that publishes a national list of low to high charges for common healthcare services, to crowdsource healthcare cost data.
The two NPR stations appealed to listeners to share the charges they paid for four medical services: mammograms, lower-back MRIs, IUDs, and diabetes testing. Hundreds of people responded to share prices they paid for these services, and thousands of people looked up prices on ClearHealthCosts.com. (more…)
Oct 31, 2014 | Coding, Billing, and Collections, Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology
It turns out that Florida, California, and Texas have the largest number of hospitals on the list
Are you curious about which hospitals in the United States charge the highest prices? A new list of the 100 most expensive U.S. hospitals has the answers. The list was compiled in an effort to provide greater price transparency. Not surprisingly, the highest-priced hospitals are likely to also have some of the highest clinical laboratory test prices.
The study was conducted by National Nurses United (NNU), the largest nurses union in the country, and the Institute for Health & Socio-Economic Policy (IHSP). Researchers used the information from Medicare cost reports that included hospital charges and costs for fiscal year 2012. (more…)
May 23, 2014 | Compliance, Legal, and Malpractice, Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology, Managed Care Contracts & Payer Reimbursement, Management & Operations
For first time since launch of the Medicare program, CMS released data on Medicare payments to individual physicians
Once again, Medicare officials have stuck a blow for price transparency. On April 9, 2014, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) released data on total payments made to individual physicians for the year 2012. In several states, pathologists were identified as among the highest-paid physicians.
Release of this information generated stories by the national and local media. There was also plenty of criticism from a number of prominent national physician associations, including the American Medical Association. It was just last year when CMS released data on what 3,000 hospitals charged Medicare for the 100 most-frequently billed discharges. (more…)
Aug 26, 2013 | Coding, Billing, and Collections, Compliance, Legal, and Malpractice, Laboratory Hiring & Human Resources, Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Operations, Laboratory Pathology, Laboratory Sales and Marketing, Managed Care Contracts & Payer Reimbursement, Management & Operations, News From Dark Daily
Study Finds Most State Websites Aimed at Transparency in Healthcare Pricing Inaccurate and Basically Useless in Helping Consumers Shop for Services
With growth in high-deductible health plans, healthcare is becoming increasingly consumer-driven. But shopping for healthcare services isn’t easy due to lack of available resources that enable consumers to compare price and quality, according to a recent study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).
Recently, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) revealed the arbitrary nature of hospital prices by publishing hospital-specific costs and outcomes data for 3,000 hospitals nationwide, according to a report published by Dark Daily. This step towards full transparency is aimed at helping consumers comparative shop for hospitals based on both quality and value.
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Jun 10, 2013 | Coding, Billing, and Collections, Laboratory Management and Operations, Laboratory News, Laboratory Pathology, Uncategorized
A newspaper in San Francisco featured a story about the patient’s complaint about being overcharged thousands of dollars by the hospital for medical laboratory tests
Here’s how a community hospital that charges inpatient prices for clinical laboratory testing to a walk-up customer find itself at the center of a media news storm. In California, a newspaper trumpeted the story of an unhappy consumer stuck with a $4,316.55 bill for a panel of medical lab tests that a national lab would have performed for just $464, about 90% cheaper!
Cautionary Tale for Medical Laboratories and Pathology Groups
Price transparency is a major trend in healthcare and consumers are catching on quickly. This raises the stakes for any hospital, medical laboratory, and anatomic pathology group that is slow to respond to the growing number of consumers who now price-shop whenever they need clinical laboratory tests. (more…)
