If you’ve read this blog before, you know how we promote all of the benefits of price transparency. By allowing consumers to know the cost of healthcare before receiving non-emergent care, they can make better decisions. And since more consumers have high deductible health plans now, they’re shouldering more of the financial responsibility. But did you know it can make the doctor more sympathetic?!
Price transparency and physician sympathy for the patient
Patients expect doctors to be caring and sympathetic to their concerns in their time of illness and need. Hopefully your doctor meets your expectations. But it’s not just about sympathy for your illness. We need them to be sympathetic to how much this illness is costing the family. So it’s no wonder you might think they don’t care about your costs when they order a really expensive test at the most expensive place to get a test (the hospital).
But it’s not their lack of sympathy that’s the problem. It’s their lack of knowledge. Price transparency, or lack thereof, isn’t just a problem for consumers. It’s a problem for doctors that mostly affect the consumer. Doctors simply don’t know how much healthcare services cost. Not their own services and certainly not the services they’re recommending that you may receive elsewhere.
With price transparency, for both the patient and the doctor, there can be a better discussion as to where that lower back MRI can be done. At an affordable rate with no reduction in quality. To find a doctor or a facility that offers healthcare services near you along with the out-of-pocket costs, click here.
