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If Healthcare Prices Emerge, Americans Won't Link To Quality

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As the healthcare industry begins to offer more ways for consumers to see and use price information, a new study indicates Americans don’t often link the price tag with quality.

Most Americans “did not think that price and quality are associated,” according to new research conducted by Public Agenda that is published in the April issue of the journal Health Affairs. Depending on how the question was framed, 58% to 71% of Americans didn’t associate healthcare prices with quality.

It’s a timely study given some states and the federal government as well as insurance companies and employers are experimenting with new approaches to make healthcare more transparent to consumers and patients. And the shopping experience is beginning to improve somewhat, with more consumers using public exchanges under the Affordable Care Act or private exchanges offered by employers.

The study is also important because doctors and hospitals often complain health insurance company networks are all about cost and not offering the best medical-care providers when presenting them to health plan members in lower-priced health plans. Most insurers, including Anthem , Aetna , UnitedHealth Group and Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans across the country, are offering more plans with narrow networks.

The study’s authors acknowledge that prices vary widely across the country, but there’s “no evidence” that higher prices are associated with the best health outcomes or improved quality.

“Most people do not believe they have to pay more money to get better quality healthcare,” David Schleifer, who conducted the analysis with his colleague Carolin Hagelskamp from Public Agenda and Kathryn Phillips from the University of California, San Francisco , said in a statement.

Researchers wrote in Health Affairs that people who “compared prices were more likely to perceive that price and quality are associated than were people who had not tried to find price information before getting care.” More than 2,000 adults were interviewed by Public Agenda for the project, which was funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

It’s clear from the report that more work needs to be done when considering public perceptions of healthcare and prices as transparency tools are developed, the authors wrote.

"It may be that people who already think better care costs more money are more likely to be comparing prices,” Schleifer said in a statement from Public Agenda. “But if comparing prices somehow causes people to think that better care costs more, then the governments, insurers and other companies who are developing transparency tools need to figure out how to address those perceptions.”

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