Comparison of Hospital Online Price and Telephone Price for Shoppable Services.

ABSTRACT:

Importance

US hospitals are required to publicly post their prices for specified shoppable services online. However, the extent to which a hospital's prices posted online correlate with the prices they give to a telephone caller is unknown.

Objective

To compare hospitals' online cash prices for vaginal childbirth and brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) with prices offered to secret shopper callers requesting price estimates by telephone.

Design, setting, and participants

This cross-sectional study included cash online prices from each hospital's website for vaginal childbirth and brain MRI collected from representative US hospitals between August and October 2022. Thereafter, again between August and October 2022, simulated secret shopper patients called each hospi

SUBMITTER: Thomas M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10507593 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature