“Right now, 10x differences in prices paid for the same healthcare service from the same doctor between insurance plans is not uncommon.”
Makes me wonder how things got to this point. How can a business perform any planning if they sell their services with such big differences between prices charged to customers?
The honest answer is because that’s what insurer negotiation had led to with hospitals having using their negotiating position.
If you’re a hospital in an area with standalone MRI clinics the negotiation pressure is high, insurers can say “ill send patients elsewhere”, so you give on price, maybe below cost.
But that same hospital is the only cath lab in 100 miles. Great! We’ll just tell the insurer “we’re charging 300% the normal cost of a cath procedure, take it or leave it”. So the insurer takes it because how can you offer insurance and tell customer they have to drive 100 miles for a heart procedure?
Hospital is happy because they’re profitable overall. Insurer just lives with paying 3x for cath procedures in that area.
Over time the higher paying ones subsidize the lower ones. Due to this we'll see some people's insurance premiums increase, some decrease, and some insurance providers probably go out of business (all good IMO).
Makes me wonder how things got to this point. How can a business perform any planning if they sell their services with such big differences between prices charged to customers?