Cynthia Fisher at the National Healthcare Price Transparency Conference
On May 13, PatientRightsAdvocate.org founder and chairman Cynthia Fisher gave a keynote address at the Indiana Employers Forum for the National Healthcare Price Transparency Conference. Cynthia discussed the importance of healthcare price transparency for employers, employees, unions, and all consumers of healthcare.
Read excerpts from Cynthia Fisher below:
On the impact of healthcare price transparency... “We are three and a half years into all hospitals having to show all prices in healthcare. For insurance companies, about three years in for all insurance carriers and third parties that administer employer and union plans to show all the actual prices. Change is happening. From a patient level, what’s so exciting to me is getting over the hardships of extreme overcharges that patients have been burdened with.
On the importance of transparency to employers and unions... “What price transparency does is give employers and unions a tremendous way to not have to reverse engineer – the hard way – prices from claims data and payment data. Employers have started managing their health plans, and your health plans, by the numbers, just like you manage supply chain or any other purchase... The first thing we all need as employers, unions, and patients is to have readily available free access to prices. Not only will this protect us from overcharges in medical billing, but it will start to create a competitive market where the consumer benefits. When we can see these prices readily then we can start to shop – a novel concept in healthcare – however, it is how we function in every sector of our economy.”
On the importance of quality and price transparency for patients... “When we start to see prices, we will start to see a functional and competitive market. The great reveal will be: show us your quality, how many [procedures] has this surgeon done, what has been the outcome, and how many have had infections? Let's get the data. Let [health facilities] compete on quality, outcome, access, and price.”
On the future of healthcare with transparency... “With price transparency three years in we should really be in the place where we can go online and search for [the price of] an MRI. Envision a future where we can go on an app, like Uber, that allows every imaging center and every hospital to bid and tell us when they are available... you could do it for thousands of dollars less... This is the beginning of the revolution, and we have miles to go before we sleep, but don’t give up because we are winning. We are winning on so many fronts.”