Fierce Healthcare reports on a study that highlights the difference between the lowest negotiated price for a common imaging service such as a brain CT scan varies widely, not only among insurers and employers dealing with a hospital system, but even among different health plans offered by the same insurer or self-funding employer. The highest negotiated price can be nearly four times as much as the lowest.
Researchers provided an example of such variation: the cost for a brain CT scan can range from $134 to $4,065 at the same hospital. The 75th percentile within-pair price gap for a brain CT scan was 2.4, the study states, “meaning that 25% of hospital-insurance company pairs had their maximum negotiated price more than 2.4 times their minimum negotiated price.”
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