Cynthia Fisher Discusses Price Transparency with Rachel Cohrs at 2023 STAT Summit

Cynthia Fisher, Founder and Chairman of PatientRightsAdvocate.org, participated in the summit hosted by STAT News to discuss the fight for systemwide healthcare price transparency.

Read excerpts from Cynthia Fisher below:

On why she’s fighting for healthcare price transparency… “How is it that we are now thinking it’s acceptable to have people that have coverage, have good jobs, to have such financial devastation and ruin and to be taught to beg… I knew that the most important thing we could do is protect patients by having access to prices, by enabling this whole industry to compete on quality of outcomes and price because it’s the right thing to do.”

On the price transparency movement… “We are at the very beginning of what can be revolutionary… and that’s to flip the pyramid the other direction [and] put the patient at the very point of it by giving us all the empowerment to be well informed about our healthcare decisions on quality price and outcomes.” 

On where transparency is working… “The employers who have gotten access to their hospital prices, the prices that their plans negotiated, and all of their receipts, which is the claims data… they realize where they’ve been overcharged, and they create new designed plans to save substantially.”

On unions shifting their health plans… “Within one year, with 200,000 employees, steering their employees to other [healthcare facilities with] great quality of care, they saved $33 million dollars.”