GAO to HHS: Open the Curtains on Health Care Prices

Many other programs simply gave the average or median price of care for specific services or bundles of services.

“This lack of health care price transparency presents a serious challenge for consumers who are increasingly being asked to pay a greater share of their health care costs,” Kohn writes.

Health care providers and provider groups often say that providing price information could raise antitrust concerns, but Kohn notes that federal antitrust regulators have endorsed the idea of providers giving price information to an independent entity that does not let users identify the prices charged by an individual provider.

Some providers say insurers should give consumers information about discounted prices, but many insurers lack data systems that can calculate discounted prices for patients before the patients actually get care, Kohn says.

“As a result, insurers may have difficulty maintaining real-time data on how much their members have paid towards their deductibles, which could affect an estimate of the complete cost,” Kohn says.