Having a baby is about the ultimate “shoppable” health care experience, since you have roughly nine months to pick where to deliver. As a health reporter, I have more experience with hospital prices than many people, so I thought I’d use my own situation of choosing where to have my baby as a demonstration of how to figure out what you might pay when you know you’ll need care. For years, people who study the economics of health care have debated whether giving people more transparent information about prices will result in savings for the patient and the system as a whole.
Studies haven’t found significant changes in consumer behavior — a January poll found only about 17% of people feel they know what their care will cost before they get it — but the federal government and the state of Colorado have continued to pass laws to make it easier to find and compare prices . While I’m searching for information about a birth, you can use these same basic steps for any planned hospital visit. This guidance doesn’t apply in emergency situations, though.
If you’re having severe chest pain, feel weak on one side of your body or are bleeding profusely, skip all this and get to the nearest emergency room. Federal and state laws should protect you from surprise bills, and as painful as fighting your insurance company after the fact may be, you don’t want to risk death by delaying care. In my case, this was pretty easy.
My workplace insurance is through Kaiser Permanent.