-Price transparency. Go to www.outofpocket.com. There are over 100,000 prices collected from different sources.  Consumers are allowed to post anonymously for those items that they pay for routine health care including mammograms, MRI’s, lab, and office visits.  CMS data is also “loaded into this site”.  I found little data that mattered in physical therapy. 

Personally, I don’t buy into the price transparency argument as a cure for our health system ills unless all services become elective and cash paying (amongst cosmetic physicians they report that botox is a great example of this as it is viewed by users as a commodity and users price shop constantly). There are some models of insurance where this is occurring somewhatan d the rise in Health Savings Accounts can be be argued to be a form of this.  Perhaps PT will in fact have a “price shopping” component to it.

I would love price transparency amongst payors-like the CMS model where I know based on geography what is reimbursed.  Why, for example, do the sordid payors give one PT clinic $50 per visit and another $35 even if they are across the street with one another?

-Medical Group Management Association (MGMA) has reported some data that I believe all PT practices are experiencing-a negative revenue to growth per practice and an increase in cost.  Cardiology, family practice, and OB/GYN are in this “shrinking margin” category.  Ironically, orthopedic practices are experiencing a 2.8 increase in revenue and a 2.3 increase in costs representing one of the few practices that are having very slight margin increase.  MGMA survey data is reaching record highs in voluntary participation (they went to an on-line data collection) with over 38,000 providers participating.  Why don’t we do this in PT?  Why are we so parochial about sharing practice data that can be confidential and result in data power?

Thoughts?

Larry@physicaltherapist.com