$2,700 for a carpal tunnel release, $3,600 for cataracts, $3,861 for a
hemorrhoidectomy, $4,750 for a bunionectomy, $4,900 for an arthro-
scopic meniscal repair and $5,800 for a bilateral inguinal hernia, just
to list a few.
The price they see on our site is the price they pay: no unforeseen
charges. The price includes the facility fee, the surgeon's professional fee
and anesthesia's fee. There's an extra charge for lab fees, as well as for
hardware, implants and devices, but we don't mark those up — patients
pay our invoice price.
On our site, when prospective patients move their cursor over a
head-to-toe diagram of a (transparent) patient, each body part pro-
duces a dropdown menu of select procedures and prices. If the price
is right, patients can use the site to take the next step to scheduling
their procedure.
We're not only marketing our price transparency directly to patients,
but also to primary care physicians. We encourage them to inform
patients with high out-of-pocket expenses about our services. Word is
spreading, not just that we've posted our prices online, but that our
prices are considerably lower than our competitor's. A physician caring
for a self-pay patient recently relayed to us that a hospital quoted the
patient a price of $25,000 for an inguinal hernia repair. Our price: $4,900.
At least the hospital quoted him a price. Research shows that most
hospitals can't even do that. Only 10% of the 102 hospitals researchers
contacted (2 in every state and the District of Columbia) were able to
give a complete price for a hip replacement over the phone, finds a 2013
study in JAMA Internal Medicine (osmag.net/k2xEZH). Even then, the
prices were wildly inconsistent, ranging from $11,000 to $125,000.
How to go transparent
Consumers won't shop on price alone. Without superb outcomes and
D E C E M B E R 2 0 1 6 • O U T PA T I E N TS U R G E R Y. N E T • 2 9
