Americans Support Price Shopping For Health Care, But Few Actually Seek Out Price Information

Abstract

The growing awareness of the wide variation in health care prices, increased availability of price data, and increased patient cost sharing are expected to drive patients to shop for lower-cost medical services. We conducted a nationally representative survey of 2,996 nonelderly US adults who had received medical care in the previous twelve months to assess how frequently patients are price shopping for care and the barriers they face in doing so. Only 13 percent of respondents who had some out-of-pocket spending in their last health care encounter had sought information about their expected spending before receiving care, and just 3 percent had compared costs across providers before receiving care. The low rates of price shopping do not appear to be driven by opposition to the idea: The majority of respondents believed that price shopping for care is important and did not believe that higher-cost providers were of higher quality. Common barriers to shopping included difficulty obtaining price information and a desire not to disrupt existing provider relationships.

Does Enrollment in High‐Deductible Health Plans Encourage Price Shopping?

“…Second, patients might care more about continuity of care for office visits and thus might be reluctant to change physicians (Mehrotra et al. ). A previous study that examined the effect of tiered physician networks found little evidence of enrollees changing physician (Sinaiko and Rosenthal ).…”

“…For example, a recent nationally representative survey found that among respondents who searched for out‐of‐pocket costs before using health care, 72 percent called their provider or plan directly to get price information and only 25 percent reported using a price transparency website (Mehrotra et al. ). Fourth, we only look at the effect of price shopping in the first year after switching to a HDHP; effects might be different in the longer run.…”

Patients’ preferences over care settings for minor illnesses and injuries

“…This finding of small effect size and low elasticities with respect to care‐setting choice is consistent with findings of a 2015 Kaiser Family Foundation tracking poll, which reported that only 6 percent of people saw information about physicians’ or hospitals’ prices and only 2 percent‐3 percent acted on it . A more recent national survey by Mehrotra et al found similarly that only 13 percent sought out information about their OPC liability before choosing a provider. Mehrotra et al identified two main reasons for the low percent of respondents seeking information about OPC: difficulty in obtaining the information and reluctance to disrupt existing relationship with their provider.…”

Prevalence and Nature of Financial Considerations Documented in Narrative Clinical Records in Intensive Care Units

“…13 In another survey, of the 13% of respondents who had actively searched for out-of-pocket costs before seeking care, 63% had called their clinician for information. 14 Finally, a study of consumer behavior regarding price shopping found that 25% of survey respondents reported discussing costs with their clinician. 15 …”