Skip to section navigation
Skip to page content

Hospital Price Transparency Study Round 3

Close up of three people examining pages of financial charts and graphs, photo by Natee Meepian/Getty Images

Our health care system consumes vast economic resources without producing commensurate health benefits. Employers, as purchasers of health benefits, have typically not played an active role in promoting the value of care or agreed on a strategy for doing it.

While the report from round 2 of the hospital price transparency study sheds light on hospitals in 25 states, work remains to be done. In Round 3, RAND expanded the scope of our analysis to include additional self-funded employers.

Read the Report

Private Health Plans Pay Hospitals 247% of What Medicare Would Pay
Employers are the largest source of U.S. health insurance, but a lack of price transparency makes it hard for them to assess the costs of hospital services. An analysis of hospital spending by private insurers finds that prices are on average almost two and a half times more than what Medicare would pay.