New Study Finds that Hospitals with “Clout” Are Often Paid Higher Prices by Private Insurers
Some hospitals are paid as much as four times other hospitals in the same city for the same procedure
Across the clinical pathology laboratory testing industry, the use of deeply-discounted prices for medical laboratory tests has always been a flash point. But few consumers see the real price of the clinical laboratory test, and even many healthcare policy experts pay little attention to how clinical laboratories and pathology groups will set prices for laboratory tests.
That is not true of the prices hospitals charge. Because of sustained efforts by Medicare, private health insurers, and employers to make prices more transparent for patients, more information on the pricing policies of different hospitals is becoming available.
