JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Federal healthcare price transparency regulation from 2019 is aimed at bending the healthcare cost curve by increasing the availability of hospital pricing information for the public.

Objective:

This study aimed to examine the association between publicly reported diagnosis-related group (DRG) chargemaster prices on the internet and quality measures, process indicators, and patient-reported experience measures.

Methods:

Our cross-sectional study collected and analyzed a random 5.0 percent stratified sample of U.S. hospital prices in 2019 using descriptive statistics and multivariate analysis.

Results:

We found extreme price variation in ‘shoppable’ services and significantly greater price variation for medical versus surgical services (P = .006). Additionally, we found quality indicators positively associated with standard charges, such as mortality (β = 0.929, P < .001) and readmissions (β = 0.514, P < .001). Other quality indicators, such as effectiveness of care (β = -0.919, P < .001), efficient use of medical imaging (β = -0.458, P = .001), and patient recommendation scores (β = -0.414, P < .001), were negatively associated with standard charges.

Conclusions:

Hospital chargemasters were found to display wide variation in prices for medical services and procedures as well as relate to quality measures. Further work is required to investigate 100.0 percent of U.S. hospital prices posted publicly on the internet and their relationship to quality measures.