Another new US healthcare price comparison site

Although it is not possible to put numbers on it, and claims by those promoting corporate or insurer paid domestic medical tourism have to be used with great caution, there is a vibe that domestic medical tourism within the USA is increasing.

The increasingly popularity of health savings accounts and high-deductible health plans often mean the entire cost of a medical procedure comes out-of-pocket. That leaves patients looking for ways to shop around.

Randy Cox, founder of pricinghealthcare.com says,“ With healthcare prices increasing the logic has been that if you give patients more control they will shop around for care. They may even think twice about getting surgery that they do not need. The flaw in the logic is that making patients pay for more is not bringing prices down because they do not know what anything costs to begin with.”

Several websites now allow US patients to compare prices and offerings in US hospitals and clinics. Pricinghealthcare.com is an open marketplace for direct pay health care. It encourages health care facilities across the country to put together cash prices, bundling the facilities fees, the physician’s fees, and all other fees all into one. The website can then market that and bring patients and employers to the site so they can shop around, if they pay cash. What that does is creates this downward pressure on prices.

One hospital on the site is St. George Surgical Centre in Utah, and it is getting business from Canada and across the USA. Jerry Hadrock of St George says,” It has been 18 months of hard work, but we are now seeing patients from California that are willing to drive over 14 hours to get here.“

Related link: pricinghealthcare.com