Pricing
Looking under the rug – what insurers pay providers now public in Minnesota
For the first time in the U.S., a web site will show consumers what insurance companies pay on average for common medical procedures. That, according to an article in this morning’s Star Tribune, titled “Medical price shopping hits Web.” (Bad headline aside – medical price shopping has been around on the web for a couple of years – this is different). Read the rest of this entry »
Price shopping from Pittsburgh to Portland
In the weekly healthcare marketing Twitter chats we attend, whenever the issue of pricing comes up, the gloves come off. It’s fascinating to see the wide range of opinions on whether price shopping is, or should be, impacting consumer behavior in healthcare (let alone what healthcare marketers should do about it). For some, it’s an obvious yes, with the caveat that the impact of price shopping is still minimal relative to the overall healthcare choice dynamic. For others, it’s “no way, no how” – price shopping is absolutely not driving consumer decisions in their market. (For a sampling of the differing views, check out the great comments below this post.) Read the rest of this entry »
Price positioning possibilities
Last week we profiled a new healthcare pricing web site, the Healthcare Blue Book. This week I had a great conversation with the company’s CEO, Dr. Jeffrey Rice. Read the rest of this entry »
Healthcare pricing: taking a new tool for a test drive
Will we ever have healthcare prices that are easy to understand and compare for consumers? We gnawed on that question in our latest podcast, as the answer could have a significant impact on how hospitals and health systems position and market themselves in the future. The reasons why we don’t have clear pricing now are many, and we won’t go into them here. But our podcast conversation led to some frustration as we wondered if pricing – the cornerstone of the promise of consumer-driven health plans – would ever really arrive in a market-moving way.
Then I saw a tweet from Gregg Masters, Read the rest of this entry »
