Press Releases: Healthcare Transparency

Review of Becker’s List of Health Systems with Strong Finances finds  more transparency needed in hospitals that receive federal aid to improve access to care. (Boston, Mass) – Pioneer Institute of Public Policy Research today released a paper that found that higher...

A new online tool from Pioneer Institute shows a gradual increase in non-commercial (public payer) revenue at Massachusetts hospitals and also reveals a strong relationship between the hospitals with the highest commercial revenue and those with the highest relative prices.

A Pioneer Institute study shows that middlemen—commercial pharmacies and pharmacy benefit managers—add substantial costs over wholesale prices. Allowing prescribers to dispense routine drugs would save consumers money without compromising safety.

A 2019 federal law requires hospitals to make prices for 300 shoppable services available online in a “consumer-friendly format,” but a Pioneer Institute survey of 19 hospitals finds that information on discounted cash prices—the price most likely to be charged to consumers paying out of pocket—was unavailable at seven of those hospitals.

Useful information about COVID cases or deaths at individual homes has become less available at a time when cases are increasing again, even among vaccinated residents. Pioneer urges Massachusetts to immediately reinstate the so-called Weekly Report, which contains cases and deaths inside individual nursing homes.

Over time, the Massachusetts Executive Office of Health and Human Services and Department of Public Health (DPH) have improved reporting about cases and deaths from COVID-19 in state-regulated eldercare facilities, but flaws and omissions remain and should be corrected, according to a new study published by Pioneer Institute.

Great strides have been made to increase healthcare price transparency through online cost estimator tools and a state law that requires providers to give out price information. Yet despite the eagerness of consumers to access prices and out-of-pocket costs, many are unaware that such information is available and don’t know how to access it, according to survey results published by Pioneer Institute.

Consumers in just one Massachusetts county could have saved nearly $22 million in a single year and $116.6 million adjusted for inflation over four years if they switched from using the most expensive providers for 16 shoppable healthcare services to those whose prices were closer to average, according to a new study published by Pioneer Institute.

After over 5,000 people have died of COVID-19 in Massachusetts nursing homes, Pioneer Institute is issuing an open letter to the state’s future COVID-19 health equity task force that outlines an extensive list of recommendations on infection control and preparedness in eldercare facilities.

Pioneer hopes the members of this important task force will be appointed as soon as possible and that they will look into recommendations to address Covid-19 among the aged and in the state’s nursing homes. Read our Open Letter.