Media Reporting Shows Some Clinical Laboratories Charge Significantly Higher than Average Prices for COVID-19 Tests—and It Is Perfectly Legal

When people receive COVID-19 testing at an out-of-network facility, federal law requires insurers to pay that clinical laboratory’s posted ‘cash price’ when negotiated prices have not previously been established In the latest example that some COVID-19 testing companies are charging significantly higher prices than others, The New York Times (NYT) recently reported that one COVID lab company with “more than a dozen testing sites” throughout the US was charging $380 for a COVID-19 rapid test...

Castlight Health Offers Employers a Cloud-based Price Transparency Tool to Help Employees Shop for Low-Cost, High Quality Health Services

Similar to Oscar Healthcare in New York, this California-based enterprise technology company offers services to make it easy for individuals to see providers’ prices, including medical laboratory test prices Another company has entered the marketplace with their unorthodox business model to support health insurance programs. One cornerstone feature is a tool that enables both employers and beneficiaries to see the prices of different providers. This young player in the health benefits...

Consumers Turn to the Internet to Shop for Cheapest Prices Offered by Hospitals, Physicians, and Clinical Pathology Laboratories

Medibid.com is typical of new companies that help consumers identify providers with the best combination of low price and high quality Should anyone be surprised that high insurance deductibles are motivating patients to shop for the best value on all sorts of healthcare services—including medical laboratory tests? One way consumers can shop for the lowest price is to utilize new web sites that allow providers to bid for the patient’s business! Potential Business Opportunity for Clinical Labs...

Shopping for HealthCare Services Not Easy Due to Lack of Publicly Available Information on Quality and Value

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,...
;