A neighbor of mine is undergoing her third round of chemotherapy this week. As we head into the end of the year, she was relieved that she had already passed […]

Bringing your car to a mechanic is a lot like going to the doctor. Auto mechanics and doctors both work within a predominantly fee-for-service system where information asymmetry prevails. Information […]

When you ask a health care provider for the price of a knee replacement, primary care visit, lab test or even a trip to the urgent care center, the most […]

Families USA 1—a nonprofit, nonpartisan consumer health advocacy organization—pulled together a coalition called Consumers First, 2 which issued a Call to Action: “Consumers First has issued A Call to Action […]

As a mom of four growing (and constantly eating) boys, I’m always trying to find ways to manage our grocery bill.  Occasionally, I try the generic brands to see if […]

Health care payment in the U.S. is the outgrowth of decades of policy decisions that were not all thought out in advance and thus have become a mess. We pay […]

On December 3, I attended the CMS call on the final rule for hospital price transparency requirements. On December 4, I read an article in the New York Times stating […]

A proposal was issued by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) on July 29, 2019 stating that hospitals must make public the payer-negotiated price for 300 common shoppable […]

Do patients have the right to know the price of healthcare services before they receive them? This is the question that the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) is […]

As of January 1, 2019, hospitals must post their prices on the internet for patients to review. The intent is to provide patients with price transparency and allow them to […]

In my last blog, I commented on being overcharged by my PBM for a medication that had been removed from their formulary – allegedly because the FDA pulled some old […]

The healthcare industry (like every other) has often used catch words and phrases: Patient empowerment, population health, electronic interoperability, pay-for-performance, quality metrics, social factors that affect outcomes, medication compliance, care […]