Hospital Senior Vice President and CFO Tim Birkenstock said the change is part of a broader initiative to educate patients about what services they pay for opposed to providing price points that have little relation to their actual out-of-pocket costs, according to the report.
“We need to re-craft how we talk about what we charge, and we need to do it in a way that people who use our facility understand what they have to pay,” he told the Miami Herald.
Miami Children’s trimmed its theoretical prices on chargemasters by 30 percent, so the remaining prices will more accurately reflect what the hospital collects from insurers. What a consumer ultimately pays, though, will still vary depending on their health plan type, benefits and other factors.
The hospital is also developing fixed prices for a handful of its most common services, such as minor dermatological procedures and wound closures, removal of tonsils and circumcisions, according to the report.
More Articles on Hospitals and Price Transparency:
Opening Up: How Pricing Transparency Will Change Hospital Benchmarking
Unveiling the Cost of Care: How Transparency Changes the Patient Perspective
Moody’s: CMS Price Transparency Report Has Long-Term Implications for Hospitals
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