Despite regulations requiring hospitals to reveal prices and available charity care programs that provide discounted care, few hospitals do so. A study by the California Healthcare Foundation used mystery shoppers posing as uninsured patients to test hospitals on how well they live up to their obligations to provide information to customers who ask for it. Researchers were able to eventually get details on prices, although with some difficulty. Information about charity care programs was much harder to come by, with only a few participants saying they were able to learn details of available programs. The study's full findings will be available Thursday.
- see this article from the San Jose Business Journal