New Poll Shows More Americans Are Checking Prices Before Getting Health Care

A recent NPR-Thomson Reuters poll shows that increasing numbers of Americans are looking for price information before the seek medical care. Of the 3,000 households who received a healthcare service in the past 12 months, 16% indicated they had sought pricing information prior to receiving the service. That figure represents an increase from 11% in 2010. Among those who sought out healthcare pricing information, 50% of respondents received it from their physician’s office and 49% received it from their insurance companies. These totals have shifted significantly from 2010, when 60% of respondents received pricing information from their physician’s office and 26% received it from their insurance company. The poll also asked questions about where people turned for pricing information, and found that 45% of respondents who said they found pricing information said they used the Internet, up from 22% who used the Internet in 2010. In addition, the poll asked about the accuracy of the price information sought, and found that 86% of respondents who received pricing information found their initial quote to be accurate, down from 98% in 2010; the rates of accuracy increase with ascending age.

Changes in insurance may be spurring interest in the prices charged for health services. There has been a marked increase in high-deductible insurance plans paired with health savings accounts. That kind of coverage gives people a strong incentive to shop around, but how much pricing information will alter consumers choices more broadly is far from clear because, even assuming perfect price transparency, the demand for most health care services is inelastic. However, that should not deter efforts at achieving price transparency.