Public Hospital in Phoenix Slashes Patient Self-Pay Prices by 50% to Increase Hospital Price Transparency

Maricopa Integrated Health System reports that price transparency pays off by reducing uncompensated care and increasing business Arizona has a new law that requires hospitals, medical laboratories, diagnostic imaging facilities, ambulatory surgery centers, and urgent-care centers to publish the prices they charge self-pay and uninsured patients for the 50 most common inpatient and outpatient services. The law took effect on January 1, 2014. News accounts report that just one hospital took...

American Consumers are Traveling Abroad to Get Affordable Healthcare and a Say in What Services They Buy

Tucson reporter travels to Sonora to get a simple clinical laboratory test and avoid hassles imposed by the U.S. healthcare system Continuing growth in the number of Americans opting to become medical tourists shows that this trend is here to stay. The reasons behind this sustained growth sector have much to teach those clinical laboratory managers and pathologists in the United States who would like to make their medical laboratory organizations more competitive and customer-friendly. For...

It’s No Surprise Why More Consumers Use the Internet to Order Lower-Priced Clinical Laboratory Tests

Web-based medical laboratory testing companies give consumers the option to purchase lab tests at cheap prices It’s nearly impossible to do a web search for any term that includes “medical laboratory tests” and not have the search engine return paid listings for numerous clinical laboratory testing companies organized specifically to allow consumers to order their own lab tests over the Internet. This is a sign that the direct-to-consumer medical laboratory testing marketplace is booming....

Senate Votes to Advance its Health Reform Bill, But Fails to Extend Universal Health Coverage to Millions of Americans

News Reports Estimate as many as 25 Million Americans Would STILL Lack Coverage With its vote on Saturday, the United States Senate advanced its version of a healthcare reform bill one step further. Now, in both the House and Senate, full floor debate will begin on the different healthcare reform bills that have reached the floor in each body. Looming in the background, however, is the failure of each of these 2,000-page proposed bills to extend universal coverage to all residents of the...

Economic Stimulus Gives Workers Second Chance for COBRA Coverage at Reduced Premium

As previously suggested by earlier Dark Daily e-briefings, studies of the 46 million uninsured Americans suggest there’s more to this statistic than a big number implies. Up to two-thirds of the uninsured either qualify for government-sponsored insurance or could afford to buy coverage. But no one disagrees that widespread layoffs and elimination of employer-sponsored health coverage are causing the ranks of the uninsured to swell. For every worker who loses health benefits, the...
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