Study: Hospitals use clout to jack up prices

Modern Healthcare: A new study claims some hospitals command far greater prices from commercial insurers than their nearby competitors, suggesting they have the clout to demand higher rates. "The Center for Studying Health System Change analyzed hospital rates as a percentage of Medicare across eight markets" using data provided by four commercial insurers. The study was funded by the employer group Catalyst for Payment Reform. Hospitals said the study was flawed because insurers used different methods to calculate the hospital prices as a percentage of Medicare rates. But, [Paul] Ginsburg, who leads both the center and the employer group, said, 'Few would characterize the variation in hospital and physician payment rates found in this study to be consistent with a highly competitive market" (Evans, 11/18).  

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This article was reprinted from kaiserhealthnews.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.