Employers and employees both want to see lower healthcare costs. Price transparency helps the organization’s bottom line and employees’ wallets. A recent study showed that knowledge of procedure costs decreased spending by 14%.

A reliable and accessible tool to compare costs is the first step.

Organizations, including big insurance companies, are rushing to market with price transparency tools. But these tools alone are too little, too late.

To engage consumers and help them to make smart decisions about their care, a price transparency tool needs to incorporate these three key features:

1.) Quality

Addressing quality helps members feel comfortable making a change in providers if their current providers are over-priced. For example, Healthcare Bluebook incorporates Healthgrades’ provider review system, which includes information about each provider’s experience, patient satisfaction and hospital quality.

2.) The “What’s in it for me?” Factor

Incentives should be clearly promoted so members understand what’s in it for them if they shop around for the best quality care. Many times, consumers don’t realize up front what their share of the total costs will be. A cash or gift card reward has proven to be the most successful.

3.) Easy action steps

Simply providing the price information is unfortunately no more than an FYI if there is no action taken. Healthcare Bluebook makes the next step easy for members by providing contact information for each facility and even the ability to schedule an appointment from the results page.

Read the full blog post at www.healthgram.com/blog