The Philadelphia Eagles are playing in Super Bowl LVII this Sunday and if you're a good Pennsylvanian, like yours truly, you'll be rooting for the Eagles. Doing such is hard work and can't be done without having a few people over, eating some awesome food, and screaming your head off.
So there I was, on my way to the grocery store to pick up a few snacks for the game. Chips, dip, you name it, I was on a mission to get all of the necessary supplies. While strolling down the snack aisle, it hit me; how is this experience similar and dissimilar from our healthcare system? Imagine the following:
You're standing in front of a sea of salsa. From one end of your periphery to the other, you see red chunky goodness staring back at you as it sits peacefully in its glass jar home. You're budget conscious and you want to get the best bang for your buck. Something is missing though, you don't see any price tags. You ask an attendant how much the various jars of salsa cost and they reply, "You'll know how much the salsa is after you scan it at the check-out, at which point you must buy it." Holy cow, I'm having cold sweats already. 😰
Okay, so what are we working with and what are the attributes of each jar? The first jars of salsa I came across were as follows:
Where do you even begin when making a decision? If I'm looking to spend the least, I'd eliminate the 16oz jars and opt for the 15.5oz jars. I'd also eliminate Newman's Own Pineapple Salsa since pineapples have to be a more expensive input than tomatoes (I don't like pineapple salsa anyway ha!). Okay, I guess I'll go with Food Club Chunky Salsa Medium. I like the label, chunky salsa, and medium heat.
Fortunately, my salsa adventure was much simpler than shopping for healthcare because I could actually see the prices of each jar. However, if I would have gotten the Food Club Medium Chunky Salsa I would have paid 74% more than if I had purchased That's Smart Medium Salsa, an equally fine option.
Unfortunately for consumers though, this is exactly the way our healthcare system functions today. Like our thought experiment above, consumers in central Pennsylvania can choose from four major health systems. Each health system charges a different amount for equivalent services and each health system obscures both the cash and the with-insurance cost from consumers. When consumers do receive care, they hope and pray that their insurance covers the services or procedure, only to get surprised by bills weeks after for the service that they're obligated to pay.
Thankfully, there is a lot of work being done by Winston Health and others to bring price transparency to the market. For background, President Trump signed an executive order in 2019 directing federal agencies to take action to increase price transparency in healthcare, with the goal of empowering patients to make informed decisions about their care and reducing healthcare costs.
Some of the specific actions taken included:
Requiring hospitals to publicly post their standard charges for services, including the negotiated rates with insurance companies.
Encouraging the development of price comparison tools for patients, such as online price transparency platforms and mobile apps.
Encouraging insurance companies to provide patients with information about the cost of services before they receive care, including out-of-pocket costs.
Despite its potential benefits, implementing price transparency in healthcare is complex and requires the proper incentive structures for consumers to be active shoppers. At Winston Health we are embracing these challenges and building consumer-first tools so that everyone wins when consumers choose low-cost, high-quality care.
If you’d like to learn more about what we are doing check out our website and follow our LinkedIn page for updates! 🐶 🚀
P.S. For anyone interested, here is the price of each jar of salsa 😝