When hospitals are called out on high prices, nothing happens

When hospitals are publicly called out about their high prices, they do virtually nothing in response.

Researchers at the University of Miami and Florida International University studied pricing practices and discharge data at 206 hospitals in The Sunshine State between 2010 and the third quarter of last year. They found no evidence that hospitals responded to the publicity with any meaningful reductions in charges.” Their findings were published in the Journal of Health Care Finance.

That's despite the fact that among the 50 hospitals in the United States with the highest cost-to-charge markups, 20 of them, or 40 percent of the nationwide total, were located in Florida. Most are for-profit facilities, with 14 of them owned by the Hospital Corp. of America (HCA).

Indeed, even after the hospitals received significant media attention regarding their pricing practices in mid-2015, they continued to raise their charges, upping them about 6 percent between late 2014 and late last year. Earlier this year, Florida Gov. Rick Scott began leaning on the state's hospitals to be more transparent in pricing through the use of public service announcements. A nationwide online petition calling for more price transparency has drawn more than 100,000 signatories to date.

“The primary causes of extremely high markups in hospital markets are lack of price transparency and negotiating power of uninsured patients, out-of-network patients, and other disadvantaged payers,” the study said. “Our analysis finds that a rudimentary form of price transparency, the publication of and media attention on high charge-to-cost ratio hospitals, did not result in an immediate adjustment to their aggregate pricing practices.”

The study concluded that there was not yet enough price transparency in Florida to leverage media attention to the problem. The state will soon compel hospitals to post bundled prices and quality data, including negotiated prices with insurers for specific procedures. The study suggested that might lead to a change in the future.