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Hospital Outpatient Prices Sharply Higher than Docs', Study Finds
Hospital outpatient prices for standard blood tests, cancer screening and other services varied widely and were sharply higher, on average, than prices charged by ambulatory clinics and independent doctors, an analysis of autoworker health-plan spending across 18 cities has found.
Hospital outpatient prices for standard blood tests, cancer screening and other services varied widely and were sharply higher, on average, than prices charged by ambulatory clinics and independent doctors, an analysis of autoworker health-plan spending across 18 cities has found.
The study, based on 2011 health plan spending by Chrysler, Ford Motor Co., General Motors and the United Auto Workers, uncovered whopping price disparities for care that accounted for $68 million in claims that year, including blood work to test cholesterol levels, colonoscopies and physical therapy.
Results, published by the National Institute for Health Care Reform, found hospital outpatient prices varied across 18 cities. Notably, hospital outpatient prices also varied widely among competitors within the same city. That suggests the force behind high hospital prices may be more than high overhead, said James Reschovsky, a senior fellow with Mathematica Policy Research and co-author of the study.
Read the full story here: http://bit.ly/1mwHICO
Source: Modern Healthcare
Managed Care Reflections: A Q&A With A. Mark Fendrick, MD, and Michael E. Chernew, PhD
December 2nd 2025To mark the 30th anniversary of The American Journal of Managed Care (AJMC), each issue in 2025 includes a special feature: reflections from a thought leader on what has changed—and what has not—over the past 3 decades and what’s next for managed care. The December issue features a conversation with AJMC Co–Editors in Chief A. Mark Fendrick, MD, director of the Center for Value-Based Insurance Design and a professor at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor; and Michael E. Chernew, PhD, the Leonard D. Schaeffer Professor of Health Care Policy and the director of the Healthcare Markets and Regulation Lab at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts.
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