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Hospital price transparancy laws in California fall short, study finds
Date:12/1/2009

Uninsured patients in California are unable to successfully obtain information about the cost of medical care at hospitals despite recent state legislation intended to improve price transparency, according to a new study.

Posing as low-income uninsured patients, researchers received price estimates from less than one-third of the hospitals they approached and the estimates received often were much higher than those allowed under California law, according to the findings published online by the Journal of General Internal Medicine.

To make it easier for patients to shop for care and to prevent price gouging of the uninsured, more than 30 states have enacted price transparency legislation. Under California law, an uninsured patient has the right to contact hospitals and receive a price estimate. The law also states that if a patient is low-income the price estimate cannot exceed what the hospital is paid for the procedure by Medicare or Medi-Cal (California's version of Medicaid).

The research team included staff from the RAND Corporation, the University of Pittsburgh, the California HealthCare Foundation and Brown University.

"Our findings raise questions about the effectiveness of California laws that are designed to help uninsured patients shop for medical care and protect themselves from being charged excessive prices," said senior author Dr. Ateev Mehrotra, a professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and a researcher at RAND, a nonprofit research organization.

Researchers sent letters to 353 California acute-care hospitals from a fictional uninsured patient requesting an estimate for one of three common elective procedures: laparoscopic removal of the gallbladder, a hysterectomy and a routine screening colonoscopy.

Just 28 percent of the hospitals responded as required by state law and the responses varied widely in content and price. Most included a price quote for hospital services on
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Contact: Warren Robak
robak@rand.org
310-451-6913
RAND Corporation
Source:Eurekalert

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