About FloridaHealthPriceFinder.com
Bottom Line: As a huge advocate of consumer price transparency in healthcare; I was immediately interested in this week’s rollout of the state’s website aimed at allowing us to compare pricing on medical services. FloridaHealthPriceFinder.com aggregates pricing information on specific non-emergency medical services from hospitals based on location. Already, on day two, I’m finding more information available than on day one (so I expect it’ll only continue to become more useful). And yes, I’ve already heard complaints from medical service providers about incomplete information and related excuses (but that’s to be expected, it’s in the consumer’s interest not necessarily the service provider’s interest, to be transparent). I decided to pull an example of something I’ve had done, an appendectomy, to compare. Here’s what came back:
- National Average: $15,022
- Florida Average: $14,757
- Palm Beach County: $11,279
- Broward County: $11,915
- Miami-Dade: $17,261
And then there’s the specific hospital pricing.
- Lowest: Jupiter Medical Center $5,960
- Highest: West Kendall Baptist Hospital - $25,534
You hear frequent stories of huge variances in cost for similar services. This one example I pulled at random illustrates the point. Using this site can instantly help you become a much better consumer of healthcare. It can also aid in providing competitiveness in the marketplace based on pricing. If you have a preferred provider with pricing that’s not as competitive, perhaps you could also point them to the pricing on the site to see if they could match. This could be the next good step towards becoming more effective consumers of healthcare and it could save us huge money.