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% Total Medical Spending % Out-of-Pocket Medical Spending % Medical Charges% Medical  Utilization All Medical Care 11.8 15.6 12.317.2Inpatient Care7.95.68.04.8Outpatient Care13.116.513.717.2 In response to high and growing health care spending, policymakers have proposed improving price transparency as a solution. Several such proposals rely on consumers taking action on publicly av...

HCCI research on shoppable services was mentioned in an article written by the LA Times. From the article: "By one estimate by the Health Care Cost Institute, just 7% of total healthcare spending for Americans with job-based coverage was on medical services that could be considered 'shoppable' because the service required an out-of-pocket payment and the procedure could be researche...

 Vitals today released its 2018 Book of Business report. The annual summary reports the metrics associated with shopping activity and savings achieved by employers and employees using Vitals SmartShopper. SmartShopper is a high-tech, high-touch health care program that allows consumers to shop for and choose better-value medical care. Over the past four years, SmartShopper has generated over ...

Laurie Cook went shopping recently for a mammogram near her home in New Hampshire. Using an online tool provided through her insurer, she plugged in her ZIP code. Up popped facilities in her network, each with an incentive amount she would be paid if she chose it. Paid? To get a test? It's part of a strategy to rein in health care spending by steering patients to the most cost-effective providers ...

Baby boomers are living longer, getting their aching hips and knees replaced as they age. That puts Illinois Bone & Joint Institute in the sweet spot of medicine. Hip and knee replacements are among the most common surgeries in the U.S.—and they're pricey. Everything involved in replacing one, from surgery to the weeks of rehab that follow, costs an average $36,000, according to Guroo, a site ...

ABSTRACT: Reference pricing in health insurance creates incentives for patients to select for nonemergency services providers that charge relatively low prices and still offer high quality of care. It changes the "choice architecture" by offering standard coverage if the patient chooses cost-effective providers but requires considerable consumer cost sharing if more expensive alternatives are sele...

By: Alison Kodjak  Need knee replacement surgery? It may be worthwhile to head for Tucson. That's because the average price for a knee replacement in the Arizona city is $21,976, about $38,000 less than it would in Sacramento, Calif. That's according to a report issued Wednesday by the Health Care Cost Institute. The report, called the National Chartbook on Health Care Prices, uses claims and...

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 ...

A new study throws cold water on the popular idea that consumers can save themselves and the health care system loads of money if they become savvier shoppers for health care services. The analysis by the Health Care Cost Institute focused on what consumers paid out of pocket, where comparison shopping can result in lower costs. The study found that less than 7 percent of total health care spendin...

This issue brief examines health care spending on shoppable services in 2011. Contrary to expectations, giving consumers prices so they can shop for health care services may only have a modest effect on reducing health spending.   Key Findings: ​In 2011, about 43% of the $524.2 billion spent on health care services for commercially insured people was considered shoppable.About 15%—nearly...

This data brief looks at per capita out-of-pocket spending rates nationally and statewide and examines average differences in consumer prices for a set of five common medical procedures: office visit for the evaluation of a new patient, colonoscopy, cataract removal, lower leg MRI; and ultrasound for pregnancy nationally and in nine states: Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, New Jersey...