Mathematica's study of the New Hampshire Health Care Price Transparency Experiment, an effort by the state to use health care price transparency to encourage cost-conscious behavior by consumers and increase competition and efficiency among health care providers, was featured in Kaiser Health News. Here's an excerpt from the piece, "How much does that X-ray cost? New Hampshire will say, but Florida won’t," by Julie Appleby:
When Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield became embroiled in a contract dispute with Exeter Hospital in New Hampshire in 2010, its negotiators came to the table armed with a new weapon: public data showing the hospital was one of the most expensive in the state for some services.
Local media covering the dispute also spotlighted the hospital’s higher costs, using public data from a state website.
When the dust settled, the insurer had extracted $10 million in concessions from Exeter. The hospital “had to step back and change their behavior,” said Mathematica health policy researcher Ha Tu, who studied the state’s efforts to make health care prices transparent.
Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/business/health-care/article2154778.html#storylink=cpy
