Avoiding Pitfalls in Provider Price Transparency
Hospitals are facing federal regulations on price transparency in 2021. Healthcare consumers, however, have been slow to seek out pricing because it is confusing and many patients do not trust hospitals as sources of price and value. An analysis by Optimity Advisors shows that, consequently, provider approaches to price transparency vary along three archetypes of hospitals that are reluctant to share all of their prices, hospitals that are progressing toward price transparency, and hospitals that are over-sharing price data.
Providers can learn from industries such as the travel industry, where price transparency has changed the consumer engagement dynamics and has allowed service providers like airlines and hotels to gain consumer trust that was previously reserved for travel agents. Hospitals that exercise price transparency with all of their patients, not just High Deductible Health Plan patients, can own the pricing story in their market and start building trust with their patients based on value.
In Optimity’s Orange Paper, Stephen Morales and Lucy Gallop argue that now is the time to develop a patient experience strategy that incorporates price transparency and to engage in critical phases of the patient’s decision-making process to help patients understand how price and value are delivered in your hospital.