Dr. Keith Smith’s Op-Ed in The Oklahoman Explains the Price Transparency Advantage

Dr. Keith Smith, the co-founder of the Surgery Center of Oklahoma, has an op-ed in The Oklahoman explaining how healthcare price transparency can reduce obscene medical prices. The Surgery Center of Oklahoma posts easily accessible, real prices offering patients financial certainty, the opportunity to shop for their care, and deep discounts compared to major hospital systems.

For instance, the Surgery Center charges $15,500 for a hip replacement, about one-fifth of the $74,000 price at a hospital in Boston. They are living proof that publishing real prices is possible and that doing so can dramatically lower healthcare costs by empowering patients with fairly priced care they know they can afford.

Watch a PRA video featuring Dr. Smith and the Surgery Center of Oklahoma HERE.

In his op-ed, Dr. Smith explains:

When I practiced anesthesia at a major hospital in the early 1990s, I saw first-hand how high and hidden prices hurt patients. Some were financially destroyed by bills from simple procedures that should not have cost nearly as much as they did. I didn't want to be an accessory to this financial ruin. I left to create a fully transparent facility..

Vanderbilt University health economist Larry Van Horn has shown that cash prices are on average 39% less expensive than insurers' rates for the same care. Transparent prices also have put downward pressure on health care costs more broadly as consumers across the country use price lists to negotiate lower prices. For instance, a patient in Atlanta used a $3,600 online price at a facility to negotiate with his local hospital, which had initially quoted him $40,000 for the same procedure. He succeeded in getting the hospital to match the lower price, which was 10 times less expensive. Prices for patients' post-operative care in the region also have fallen as vendors have competed to secure our business and referrals.

The Free Market Medical Association and Atlas Billing Company have created online shopping tools that aggregate prices from price transparent providers nationwide, allowing patients to shop for care like they currently do for hotels on Kayak or Expedia. These offer a vision of the bright future ahead when all hospitals follow our lead.

Read the full op-ed in The Oklahoman.