The HealthPriceCompare Blog
Hospital Standard Charges
By HealthPriceCompare - September 25th, 2023
Hospital standard charges refer to the publicly published prices for various medical services, procedures, and supplies offered by a healthcare facility. Its purpose is to ensure transparency in health care prices for consumers, employers, payers and...
Why Healthcare Price Transparency?
By HealthPriceCompare - August 27th, 2023
Patients face a different healthcare environment now versus the one that existed before Covid. ...
Self-Paying Patients and Re-Inventing the Healthcare Experience
By HealthPriceCompare - August 7th, 2023
Patients have now become the new payers due to fundamental shifts disrupting and redefining healthcare. The American healthcare system’s traditional reliance on third-party payment that has shielded patients from the actual cost of the care being r...
What To Know About Sleep Studies
By HealthPriceCompare - July 19th, 2023
Sleep is in. Not that it was ever out but it is now more popular than ever with a newfound realization of the short and long-term health benefits of consistent and adequate shut-eye. A sleep study, known technically as polysomnography, is a medical t...
What Patients Need to Know About Endoscopy Costs
By HealthPriceCompare - July 17th, 2023
An endoscopy procedure is a medical examination that involves the use of an endoscope, which is a flexible tube with a light and a camera attached to it. This instrument allows doctors to visualize and examine the interior of various organs and struc...
Ultrasound Cost Factors
By HealthPriceCompare - July 12th, 2023
An ultrasound, also known as ultrasonography, is a medical imaging technique that uses high-frequency sound waves to create real-time images of the internal structures of the body. It is commonly used for diagnostic purposes to visualize organs, tiss...
Mammograms: Screening vs Diagnostic Costs
By HealthPriceCompare - July 7th, 2023
The cost of a mammogram can vary depending on various factors, including whether it’s for screening or diagnostic purposes, the location, the insurance contracted prices in effect between your insurance company and provider and the individual's typ...
Discounted Cash Prices in Healthcare
By HealthPriceCompare - June 26th, 2023
In healthcare, the term discounted cash price refers to the reduced price that providers offer patients who pay for their medical services or treatments upfront, in cash, and without involving any insurance or third-party payer. It is an alternative ...
Emergency vs. Urgent Care Costs
By HealthPriceCompare - June 19th, 2023
The cost differences between emergency care and urgent care can vary depending on several factors, including the specific healthcare provider, location, and the nature of the medical condition. Emergency care generally tends to be more expensive than...
Emergency vs. Urgent Care: How to Choose
By HealthPriceCompare - June 15th, 2023
Understanding the difference between the emergency room (ER) and urgent care centers can help you choose the most appropriate healthcare facility for your needs. While the ER is crucial for receiving timely and appropriate medical care, urgent care ...
IRS Announces Record 2024 HSA Contribution Limits
By HealthPriceCompare - June 6th, 2023
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) recently announced a record change to the amounts that can be contributed to a health savings account (HSA) in 2024. Starting in 2024, the maximum HSA contribution for self-only coverage will increase to $4,150, a 7...
On Health Insurance Deductibles
By HealthPriceCompare - May 28th, 2023
A health insurance deductible is the amount of money that a policyholder must pay out of pocket for covered medical services before their insurance plan starts to pay for medical expenses. Deductibles vary depending on the insurance plan and can rang...
What Are Payer-Specific Negotiated Rates?
By HealthPriceCompare - May 24th, 2023
Insurance contracted prices, also known as negotiated rates or in-network rates, refer to the pre-established prices that healthcare providers agree to accept from insurance companies for their services. These prices are set through negotiations betw...
Short-Term Limited Duration Insurance
By HealthPriceCompare - May 18th, 2023
Short-term, limited-duration insurance (STLDI) is a type of health insurance that provides limited coverage and benefits for a period of as little as a month to as long as three years. These plans may offer coverage for some of the same types of heal...
PET Scan Costs and You
By HealthPriceCompare - May 14th, 2023
Positron Emission Tomography (PET) (link) scans, also known as nuclear medicine studies, are a type of imaging study that visualizes biochemical changes taking place in the body and measures metabolic activity of the cells of body tissues. Used mostl...
What is a PET Scan?
By HealthPriceCompare - May 8th, 2023
A PET scan is the combination of PET (Positron Emission Tomography) and CT (Computed Tomography) scans. By using radiation to show activity in the body on a cellular level, it can help detect health issues and conditions at the functional level by cr...
Why Shop Healthcare
By HealthPriceCompare - May 2nd, 2023
The availability of healthcare price, distance and quality information has empowered patients to make more informed decisions than ever before when deciding on a provider. While entrenched healthcare business interests contend that healthcare purchas...
Do You Need an MRI or a CT-Scan?
By HealthPriceCompare - April 19th, 2023
MRI and CT scans are powerful, safe and pain free non-invasive imaging techniques that help diagnose a wide range of medical conditions by locating the problem, confirming the diagnosis, and guiding treatment. Both types of scans have similar uses bu...
How Much Does A CT Scan Cost?
By HealthPriceCompare - April 7th, 2023
The cost of a CT scan generally depends on the specific type of exam and the area being imaged. Limb and abdomen images tend to cost less than images of the spinal cord and brain. A knee joint can cost in the $220 to $3,000 range while a CT scan of t...
What is a CT Scan?
By HealthPriceCompare - March 24th, 2023
A computed tomography (CT) scan, also called a CAT scan, is a medical imaging diagnostic procedure that uses rotating x-ray machines to provide a detailed cross-sectional view of the inside of the body that shows soft tissue, blood vessels, and bones...
Did You Know You Can Choose Your Imaging Center?
By HealthPriceCompare - March 8th, 2023
The pain in your neck is too much to bear. Or perhaps your teenager got hit in the head playing sports. Either way, you need an MRI to have the problem examined. So where should you go to get your procedure done?Most people just go where their physic...
How Much Does an MRI Cost?
By HealthPriceCompare - February 9th, 2023
MRIs are a commonly used diagnostic tools in medicine. The first 2D and 3D MRI images were created in 1973 and its inventors would go on to be jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in 1973 for its development. Why Does an MRI Cost So Much?If your doctor ha...
Health Conditions and MRI Diagnostic Capabilities
By HealthPriceCompare - January 17th, 2023
Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) produces quality images that enable the creation of comprehensive reports on the functionality and health of the body. It offers an assemblage of diagnostic procedures that can be used to identify health related issue...
What is an MRI?
By HealthPriceCompare - January 3rd, 2023
Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a safe and pain-free imaging technique that uses a combination of magnets and radio waves to produce detailed images of the body. This powerful yet noninvasive imaging device uses magnets and radio waves to produce...
How Health Savings Accounts Build Wealth
By HealthPriceCompare - November 11th, 2022
Since their creation in 2003, health savings accounts (HSA) have proven to be an attractive option for health plan enrollees who are also enrolled in a high-deductible health plan (HDHP). In the past decade alone, the number of HSAs has grown from 6 ...
What Healthcare Consumers Should Do Before the New Year
By HealthPriceCompare - October 15th, 2022
If you are like many American healthcare consumers, you are enrolled in a calendar-based high deductible health insurance plan that resets its cost sharing requirements at the end of each year. This means that any progress you made towards reaching y...
High-Deductible Health Plans
By HealthPriceCompare - September 25th, 2022
High-deductible health plans are defined by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) as any plan with a deductible of at least $1,500 for an individual and $3,000 for a family. In addition to these deductible figures, yearly out-of-pocket expenses (deducti...
What Is A Shoppable Healthcare Service?
By HealthPriceCompare - January 27th, 2022
Effectively shopping for healthcare is a novel concept for those who have never had to pay for medical expenses directly out-of-pocket. With the continued growth of high-deductible health insurance plans and their considerable up-front cost sharing r...
Healthcare Price Transparency Is About Certainty
By HealthPriceCompare - September 19th, 2021
Healthcare is expensive. So are cell phones, airplane tickets and automobiles. But what makes healthcare different from these three commonly purchased consumer items?Unlike healthcare, consumers making purchasing decisions for an iPhone, a plane tick...
Medical Care for the Uninsured - Seven Steps
By HealthPriceCompare - June 15th, 2021
If you find yourself uninsured and need medical care, what should you do? If you are reading this, you have taken a good first step. This post is a condensed step-by-step approach to shopping for necessary medical care if you are uninsured.1) Did you...
Nine Things to Know About Medical Debt and Credit Scores
By HealthPriceCompare - October 6th, 2020
What if you cannot pay a medical bill? Fortunately, federal consumer protection laws offer some measure of protection. In addition, medical debt, in recognition of the unpredictability of necessary medical care, is treated more leniently than regular...
Six Fair Debt Collection Practice Act Protections
By HealthPriceCompare - May 3rd, 2020
Unexpected medical expenses happen. You may have a high-deductible health plan or short-term medical insurance where the benefit kicks in after you pay thousands of dollars in up-front out-of-pocket costs. Or you may be uninsured and do not qualify f...