CLEVELAND — We all know medical costs can be confusing, but it’s about to get a lot easier. A national patient advocacy group will launch an online tool starting tomorrow so you can shop for your medical needs.
“I just got a bill for some bloodwork that seemed really high to me,” said Ilaria Santangelo.
As a patient, she knew something wasn’t right.
“I went on my hospital’s website. I downloaded their pricing file and I compared line-by-line the prices from my insurer that I was charged,” she told us.
As the director of Research at Patient Rights Advocate (PRA), she has a better way for people in Ohio to get medical pricing info than going line by line: PRA’s new site, OhioHospitalPrices.org.
“So, all Ohioans can easily access these prices so they can shop for care on the front end or to have remedy and recourse and fight surprise, egregious, maybe erroneous bills on the back end,” said Santangelo.
MANY OPTIONS ON THE PRICE FINDING TOOL
PRA has created a way for you to type in the medical procedure or service you need, the hospital you want, and, if you don’t have the medical billing code, it will help you find it. Then, their tool will give you the price right there online.
It also lets you compare identical procedures across hospitals.
“I found that you get a lower-lumbar MRI at two different Ohio hospitals nearby for a little bit over $200 or over $2000,” she told us.
“Ohio has the opportunity to be the North Star as it comes to hospital price transparency,” said Ohio State Representative Ron Ferguson, who was a co-sponsor of the Hospital Price Transparency Act that says, by law, medical providers have to post their prices in dollars and cents, which, in turn, allows for the price finder tool to work. It grabs that data for you.
OHIO PRICE TRANSPARENCY ACT HAS HELPED
“It’s incredible, said Rep. Ferguson. “It’s a great opportunity for consumers here in Ohio to actually get the benefit of the law we put into effect.”
The law is fairly new, but by now, all hospitals should be compliant. That hasn’t happened, and many hospitals are still working toward full compliance. So, not everything is posted just yet; however, what is posted is still helpful.
“It is a spectrum,” said Santangelo. “So, just because a hospital is not complying does not mean they have prices for nothing.”
We found a ton of procedures and services, each with built-in descriptions to help you choose the right one. There are color-coded bars showing which price plan is the highest in red, the middle-of-the-road is yellow, and the cheapest is in green. You can bookmark your insurance plans and save details as you go.
THIS IS ALL AT NO COST TO YOU
All of this information and the site are free as part of the mission of the PRA group’s CEO.
“Who believes all Americans should have prices before they get care so this is her philanthropic donation to everyone, to all Ohioans and it’s really exciting,” said Santangelo.
Patient Rights Advocate has already launched similar medical-pricing online tools for New York City, Colorado, and Oklahoma. Ohio’s site goes live tomorrow morning, Dec. 10, at 5 am.
