MASSDEVICE ON CALL — A Washington University project intended to uncover the cost of hip replacement procedures made the unindented discovery that around half of the hospitals could provide no estimates.
Among the more than 100 hospitals contacted by the researcher, those that could provide figures ranged from around $11,000 to more than $125,000.
Researcher Jamie Rosenthal, a senior at Washington University in St. Louis, called hospitals from every state to ask for the cost of of a hip replacement.
"Transparency is all the rage these days in government and business, but there has been little push for pricing transparency in health care, and there’s virtually no information," study co-author Dr. Peter Cram told the New York Times. "I can get the price for a car, for a can of oil, for a gallon of milk. But health care? That’s not so easy."
The results were published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Assn., the Times reported.
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