Source: Colorado Sun
f you have a medical procedure on the horizon in Colorado, there’s a new way to shop around for the best price.
Gov. Jared Polis on Tuesday announced a new website — ColoradoHospitalPrices.com — where people can look up various procedures performed at a hospital and see a list of prices based on insurance carrier. The tool, then, potentially allows people with upcoming medical care to shop around and see which hospitals available in their insurance network can offer the lowest price.
At a news conference, Polis said he hopes the website is the first step in an effort to apply market pressure to hospitals to reduce their prices. With health insurance premium prices set to rise for many next year, lowering what patients — and insurers — pay for health care is vital to reducing overall health care spending
“One of the key failings of the market is the lack of pricing transparency that doesn’t allow for the competition to work as it does in any normal market, to bring down costs,” he said.