Suzanne Delbanco chats with Zach Brown, PhD, Assistant Professor of Economics at the University of Michigan. Zach Brown used a quasi-experimental approach to analyze the impact of New Hampshire’s price transparency website on health care spending. His research, which was featured in the Wall Street Journal, examined spending on medical imagining services like MRIs, common procedures that patients are able to shop for when scheduling their care. The research builds the case that price transparency – when delivered in easy to understand format to patients- can work in favor of containing health care spending. Tune in to learn about the history of price transparency, the arguments against transparency, and where further research is needed.
Not all states are like New Hampshire, which recently received one of two “A” grades from CPR’s 2020 Report Card on State Price Transparency Laws. Because access to price information is largely in the hands of health plans and health care providers, it’s up to states to ensure that citizens have access to meaningful price information.