Beginning January 1st, hospitals were supposed to put a master price list online for all of their services. It’s a mandate from the 2010 Affordable Care Act that aims to get consumers more involved in their healthcare, but Louisiana Hospital Association President Paul Salles cautions if you have insurance, those prices won’t be your final bill.
“It’s typically not what is paid for the service. That is really governed by your individual situation, so if you are on Medicare or Medicaid, you have a set of very specific rules.”
Hospitals are allowed to put prices in context, such as providing the average out of pocket expense to a Medicare patient for a certain treatment.
So, if you are insured, the best way to find out what a treatment, surgery, or other service will cost, is to pick up your phone, and…
“Contact your insurance company, and make sure you understand your benefits, and how those benefits are paid for that specific situation.”
The prices are also referred to as “charges”, or “standard charges”.
Unfortunately a brief survey of Louisiana hospitals indicated that many have either not posted those prices on their primary hospital website, have dead links to price charts, or have made them very difficult to access. So, if you’re interested in seeing what the real cost of that x-ray is, you may not have an easy time doing it…
“The rule did not specify exactly where on their website the information was to be made available, but that it was to be made available.”
