Medical transparency

"Instead of allowing government" to set medical prices, "which is essentially the case for the great majority of medical procedures, the role of the government should be to make transparent the pricing of these procedures," Scott Atlas, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, and Stanford University School of Medicine professor, writes in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece. Atlas says, "Patients ... would greatly benefit if the government required that prices be posted for common medical procedures before care is administered." He adds, "When prices are openly stated and widely known, competition will ensue and prices will come down." Atlas continues that patients need to know prices "upfront," either through brochures or consent forms, postings in offices and hospitals, or on the Internet. While price sometimes depends on individual situations, Atlas says that "posted prices could be based on retrospective analysis of the provider's previous three or six months' average of charges." He says, "The idea of informed consumers knowing prices and controlling their health care dollar is an extremely powerful one." He continues, "Ultimately, no commodity, no service industry, sells to consumers without openly disclosing prices. Doctors and hospitals might be forced to rethink their prices if they knew those price would become part of the public domain." Atlas concludes, "There should be no mystery to patients about what their own health care will cost" (Atlas, Wall Street Journal, 2/17).

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