Americans are "hungry" for price information (Part 1)

Public Agenda is a non-profit organization founded in 1975 by social scientist and author Daniel Yankelovich and former Secretary of State Cyrus Vance. Over the years, Public Agenda established (not without controversy) its reputation as a provider of non-partisan research and insights into a number of critical issues such a public finances, education or healthcare.

This month the foundation released a report focusing on healthcare: costs and the way the american public interacts with cost information that is becoming trend-setting. The research was based on a nationally representative survey of 2,010 U.S. adults (ages 18+), conducted via telephone and online during the summer of 2014, followed by focus groups and selected semi-structured follow-up interviews.

We have tried to highlight some of the more interesting aspects from their report. In this blog we talk about the raising interest in healthcare price transparency and what motivates the average american to go looking for costs.

Americans are "on the hunt" for healthcare price information

One of the first and most important findings of their national survey was americans are looking for (but, sadly, encountering difficulties in this) information related to healthcare costs. Up to 56% of Americans report having tried to find out the amount of out-of-pocket expenses even before receiving the medical services they were looking for.

Below you can see the percentages of those interested to find out straightforward answers to their cost queries for different types of medical services.

Curiously, not only out-of-pocket costs are of interest to the average american, but also what their insurers get charged: 21 % say they have tried to find out how much their insurance companies would have to pay doctors or hospitals, even if their out-of-pocket costs would not be affected. This reveals (arguably) that at least one in five americans value healthcare price transparency intrinsically.

What makes one decide to look for information about healthcare cost?

According to this survey not all are equally motivated to search for concrete information on prices. Rather obviously, people with higher deductibles are more likely to go looking for price information: when deductibles rise above $500, fully 67 % report being motivated to search for what those costs would likely be.

Also expected is their finding that people with college degrees - up to 62% - are more likely to be interested in looking up healthcare costs. A bit less obvious is that women - 59% - are more likely than men to prospect for pricing. Retired americans, on the other hand, seem to be rather less interested - only 40% reported engaging in finding more information about costs.

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