“On average, case mix–adjusted hospital prices were 241% of Medicare prices in 2017,” RAND researchers Chapin White and Christopher Whaley wrote in the study published Thursday. “Reducing hospital prices to Medicare rates over the 2015–2017 period would have reduced health care spending by approximately $7.7 billion for the employers included in this study,” RAND researchers wrote. “Employers really have no sense of whether they are getting a good price,” RAND researcher Whaley said in an interview. “That price that employers are getting isn’t all that great.”Employers could request price information from the insurers they hire but generally don’t. In this RAND study, employers were successful getting insurers to cooperate and send them data that could be used for the study.

Source: Forbes May 09, 2019 16:52 UTC