Even if a patient is covered by insurance, the self-pay price — the cost of a service that a provider directly offers to a patient without having to go through a payer — can be upwards of half the price a patient would pay through an insurance deductible, according to a Solv Health news release.
The on-demand healthcare provider, which recently launched a tool to allow patients to shop for providers’ cash prices, found that 40 percent of consumers who shop around for self-pay prices could benefit from savings.
Payers often can’t compete with the self-pay price for members with high deductible plans because lowering prices too much eats into profits, according to Quartz. Dropping rates too much could force payers to increase premiums to make up for the discrepancy.
The other factor is a provider’s incentive to avoid insurance bureaucracy, which includes billing, administrative fees and claims collections, according to Quartz. Billing patients directly cuts down on administrative lift, saving time and money.
