Removing the Veil: Price Transparency in Interventional Radiology

Abstract

In 2011, national health care expenditures totaled $2.7 trillion, doubling in the span of a decade and accounting for 18% of the United States gross domestic product (1). Experts recognize that current spending trends are unsustainable and that a multifaceted approach to health care reform is necessary. Price transparency provides one avenue through which cost containment may be achieved, as “price opacity” tends to be the norm in the current health care market (2–4). A recent study found that only 16% of randomly selected US hospitals were able to provide pricing information for total hip arthroplasty, a common elective surgical procedure (3). This lack of cost clarity complicates patient and clinician efforts to factor financial considerations into health care utilization decisions. Although legislation addressing price transparency was notably absent from the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010, several other federal bills have been recently introduced to assist patients in obtaining pricing information (5). Additionally, more than half of all states have considered or pursued legislation to require price transparency in medicine (6). Price transparency efforts are likely to affect all health care providers, including interventional radiologists, so familiarity with this topic is of paramount relevance. This article will review the rationale behind price transparency, discuss its potential for curbing rising health care costs, and consider the impact of greater price transparency on interventional radiologists.