By: Yevgeniy Feyman

Price and quality transparency in health care has often been seen as the missing link for extracting more value out of our health care system. With the appropriate financial incentives, along with easily accessible cost estimators and information on physician and hospital quality, patients could flock to the lowest-cost, highest-quality providers.

But a new study by the Health Care Cost Institute (HCCI) prompted some to declare that transparency in health care might not be all that useful. Fortunately, this is far from the case. In fact, the study underscores the need for more price and quality transparency along with better insurance benefit design.