Price Transparency in Health Care: Bargaining Incentives and Patient Responses

This paper studies the impact of price transparency on health care prices, using a natural experiment involving the gradual disclosure of medical procedure prices on a state-run website. The study finds that negotiated allowed amounts decreased by 5.1% for surgical procedures and 9.1% for radiology procedures, which have higher average allowed amounts and attracted more price requests on the website. In contrast, for lab procedures, the evidence is mixed and does not point to a clear effect. The observed reductions are primarily driven by provider-insurer negotiations rather than patient price shopping. Price reductions were consistent across all providers and insurers, regardless of whether their prices were listed on the transparency website, and extended to providers in neighboring states.

本文研究价格透明度对医疗服务价格的影响，采用一项自然实验展开分析——该实验涉及州政府运营的网站逐步披露医疗程序价格。研究发现，手术程序的协商允许金额下降5.1%，放射科程序下降9.1%；这两类程序的平均允许金额更高，且在该网站上获得了更多价格查询。相比之下，实验室程序的相关证据混杂，未显示明确效果。观察到的降价效应主要由医疗服务提供者-保险公司（provider-insurer）谈判推动，而非患者的价格比较行为。降价在所有医疗服务提供者和保险公司中保持一致，无论其价格是否在透明度网站上列出，且这种效应还延伸至邻近州的医疗服务提供者。