- Center on Health Equity & Access
- Clinical
- Health Care Cost
- Health Care Delivery
- Insurance
- Policy
- Technology
- Value-Based Care
Reference Prices May Have Limited Potential for Savings, Report Says
Reference prices, a health benefit strategy that requires patients to pay costs above a set price, may save employers and patients money, but their potential may be limited-perhaps even more so under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
Reference prices, a health benefit strategy that requires patients to pay costs above a set price, may save employers and patients money, but their potential may be limited—perhaps even more so under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
The California Public Employees' Retirement System and WellPoint subsidiary Anthem adopted a $30,000 reference price for scheduled hip and knee surgeries in 2011. The switch saved CalPERS $2.8 million that year and prompted some hospitals to drop their prices to be competitive, according to a newly released paper by the Center for Studying Health System Change.
But it may be difficult to repeat those results elsewhere, wrote the center's Amanda Lechner, Rebecca Gourevitch and Paul Ginsburg. Meanwhile, the financial incentive that reference prices create to avoid high-priced hospitals may be undermined by the Affordable Care Act.
Read the full story here: http://bit.ly/1kjemmn
Source: Modern Healthcare
"The Barriers Are Real": Antoine Keller, MD, on Geography and Cardiovascular Health
April 18th 2025Health care disparities are often driven by where patients live, explained Antoine Keller, MD, as he discussed the complex, systematic hurdles that influence the health of rural communities.
Read More
Personalized Care Key as Tirzepatide Use Expands Rapidly
April 15th 2025Using commercial insurance claims data and the US launch of tirzepatide as their dividing point, John Ostrominski, MD, Harvard Medical School, and his team studied trends in the use of both glucose-lowering and weight-lowering medications, comparing outcomes between adults with and without type 2 diabetes.
Listen
Empowering Teams Begins With Human Connection: Missy Hopson, PhD
April 16th 2025Missy Hopson, PhD, Ochsner Health, discussed in detail the challenges of strengthening the patient-centered workforce, the power of community reputation for encouraging health care careers, and the influence of empowered workforces on patient outcomes.
Read More
