Most consumers don’t use online resources to compare health-care prices, according to a survey that UnitedHealthcare recently released. Just 14 percent of adults ages 18 and older turn to services on the Internet to look at prices for health-care treatments, procedures, and services, according to the survey. That’s lower than the 50 percent of consumers […]
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Most consumers don’t use online resources to compare health-care prices, according to a survey that UnitedHealthcare recently released.
Just 14 percent of adults ages 18 and older turn to services on the Internet to look at prices for health-care treatments, procedures, and services, according to the survey. That’s lower than the 50 percent of consumers using online services to comparison-shop for airline tickets or the 49 percent that use them to shop for electronics, computers, and cameras.
It’s also below the portion checking prices on the Internet before making car purchases — 35 percent. Additionally, a greater chunk of consumers checked vacation packages online, 29 percent, and food, household, and consumer goods online, also 29 percent.
But Bill Golden, CEO of UnitedHealthcare Employer & Individual of New York, expects comparison shopping for health-care prices to grow among consumers.
“I anticipate that number will go up and will continue to go up as members and consumers take a bigger part in their health-care selections and as cost-sharing becomes a little more relevant to many members,” he says. “The more they have skin in the game, the more they’ll be interested in comparison shopping.”
Cost awareness isn’t only growing among members of high-deductible health plans or health plans with rising deductibles, according to Golden. Consumers are also taking more time to think about how their own health-care spending affects their premiums, he says.
“There are a lot of members that are starting to understand that their lifestyle and costs are starting to take effect on what’s taken out of their paycheck every month,” he says. “I think most employers are being very transparent about how they set their employee contributions.”
Some results in the UnitedHealthcare survey indicated room for growth in comparison-shopping for health-care prices. About 40 percent of survey respondents had spent some time online researching health-care providers like doctors, clinics, and hospitals before being treated for a major health-care event. And until recently, few tools were available for easy online comparison shopping, Golden says.
Still, only one in four of those who compared providers online before major health-care events spent more than three hours on their research. And, the survey found that 60 percent of respondents do not use the Internet for examining health-care costs.
“I don’t think the tools have ever been terrific to do that kind of cost shopping,” Golden says. “That’s an issue. People aren’t going to spend time doing this if they can’t get good information.”
New tools are popping up online, including UnitedHealthcare’s myHealthcare Cost Estimator, giving plan members more tools to predict their out-of-pocket costs and the overall cost of using a provider or hospital, Golden says. UnitedHealthcare’s tool has a national database of more than 574,900 providers and 4,275 hospitals for quality and cost comparisons.
“As the data gets better, you will see more interactions around comparison shopping,” Golden says. “You can get this data on your mobile phone. It’s delivering the information when people really need it.”
Golden cited one more force behind growth in health-care cost comparisons.
“If you step away from health care and you think about people’s success in working with an Amazon or any other type of website with a rating function, they’re becoming used to it,” he says. “It’s becoming a course of action to really see what’s on the open market — the price and quality.”
UnitedHealthcare is a division of Minnetonka, Minn.–based UnitedHealth Group, Inc. (NYSE: UNH). It is Central New York’s third-largest insurer, according to the 2012 Book of Lists. It had 200,000 members in Central New York in 2010, the most recent year for which data was available.
The company generated almost $55 billion in total revenue in the first half of this year and nearly $102 billion in revenue in 2011.
UnitedHealthcare issued its comparison-shopping survey Sept. 18. Princeton, N.J.–based Opinion Research Corp. conducted the survey, which recorded responses from 1,032 adults.
Contact Seltzer at rseltzer@cnybj.com
