A Nashville-based health care firm warns that consolidation in the hospital industry is driving up prices of tests and procedures. A co-founder of Healthcare Bluebook appeared before senators Tuesday amid a series of hearings on the ballooning cost of health care.
Bluebook’s business model is helping employers nudge their insured workers to do a little shopping around for services — whether diagnostic tests or a hip replacement. The decade-old company grades facilities on average prices for certain procedures compared with the quality of the service they provide.
Even with the difficulty of comparison shopping in health care, it’s even harder when conglomerates have swallow their competitors.
“I encourage Congress to be vigilant of the impact that consolidation has on prices and to promote policies that foster competition, which I believe in the long run are in the interests of our consumers,” senior vice president Bill Kampine
told the Senate Health Committee, chaired by Tennessee Republican Lamar Alexander.
Kampine says hospitals acquiring large physician practices is one trend in particular to keep an eye on — a phenomenon
occuring with Nashville-based HCA and other hospital chains.
However, HCA did get a pat on the back from the CEO of Leapfrog,
who was on the panel. Leah Binder commended the nation’s largest for-profit hospital operators for being the only system “of its size” that is 100 percent transparent with the Leapfrog surveys, with generate
hospital consumer ratings.
The health committee, which is chaired by Tennessee Republican Lamar Alexander, was specifically focused on price transparency. And on that note, Kampine discouraged the government from expanding its role, arguing that the private sector is better suited to provide comparison shopping.
“Independent solutions need to be at the center of transparency because they’re free from conflicts of interest that can rise with our other industry stakeholders,” he said.
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