In Health Care, Price does NOT Equal Quality, so Shop Around! Sometimes the high cost of a lab test or procedure is simply based on being able to get away with it. Historically (and still) what something costs and what you get charged for, is hidden to the patient. But because patients are increasingly responsible for a portion of their own bill and because health insurers want to manage costs and influence behavior with their members, we are seeing changes. ...perhaps this is the start of “pay to shop” in healthcare. Selected Excerpts: “At the request of Kaiser Health News, Healthcare Bluebook ran some sample numbers for a Northern Virginia ZIP code, finding the cost of a colonoscopy ranged from $670 to $6,240, while a knee arthroscopy ranged from $1,959 to $20,241. These are not crazy ideas,” said David Asch, professor of medicine, medical ethics and health policy at the Penn Medicine Center for Health Care Innovation in Philadelphia. But it’s hard to get consumers to change behavior — and curbing health care spending is an even bigger tasks.” …see more