Change Healthcare is doing amazing things to expose actual healthcare prices to consumers.  For all of you non-healthcare people, this data is highly prized and kept secret by absolutely every player in the industry.  Everyone benefits by keeping these prices private – except consumers and especially people who have to pay cash for their own healthcare.  

Check out the press release here but here’s the money quote:

Upstart healthcare technology company change:healthcare today re-launched its cost ratings tool – called a Medstimate rating – which profiles the amount that healthcare providers nationwide accept as negotiated prices for their services, yanking the covers off the medical world and exposing fair pricing for consumer-driven healthcare (CDHC) in the process.   By rolling out pricing models for services from over 1.5 million providers – and price ranges for what more than 10,000 medical services should cost – the company’s re-tooled Medstimate system left the healthcare industry with no more secrets than those afforded by a hospital gown.   The pricing data is being released in phases, with hospital inpatient and outpatient service negotiated price ranges being the first – and, to-date, most comprehensive – data provided.  Average regional negotiated price data on all physicians, dentists, chiropractors, medical clinics and nursing homes nationwide have been compiled and will be available on the site.  Over time, more detailed price ranges for these services will be integrated into the site market-by-market.   The data has been culled from a variety of up-to-date resources, including the government, insurers, providers, consumers and other sources.