TY  - JOUR
AU  - Patel, Kunal N
AU  - Mazurenko, Olena
AU  - Ford, Eric
PY  - 2021
DA  - 2021/8/19
TI  - Analysis of Hospital Quality Measures and Web-Based Chargemasters, 2019: Cross-sectional Study
JO  - JMIR Form Res
SP  - e26887
VL  - 5
IS  - 8
KW  - chargemaster
KW  - standard charge
KW  - price transparency
KW  - health care
KW  - diagnosis-related group
KW  - DRG
KW  - quality measures
KW  - the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services regulation
KW  - CMS
AB  - Background: The federal health care price transparency regulation from 2019 is aimed at bending the health care cost curve by increasing the availability of hospital pricing information for the public. Objective: This study aims to examine the associations between publicly reported diagnosis-related group chargemaster prices on the internet and quality measures, process indicators, and patient-reported experience measures. Methods: In this cross-sectional study, we collected and analyzed a random 5.02% (212/4221) stratified sample of US hospital prices in 2019 using descriptive statistics and multivariate analysis. Results: We found extreme price variation in shoppable services and significantly greater price variation for medical versus surgical services (P=.006). In addition, we found that quality indicators were positively associated with standard charges, such as mortality (β=.929; P<.001) and readmissions (β=.514; P<.001). Other quality indicators, such as the effectiveness of care (β=−.919; P<.001), efficient use of medical imaging (β=−.458; P=.001), and patient recommendation scores (β=−.414; P<.001), were negatively associated with standard charges. Conclusions: We found that hospital chargemasters display wide variations in prices for medical services and procedures and match variations in quality measures. Further work is required to investigate 100% of US hospital prices posted publicly on the internet and their relationship with quality measures. 
SN  - 2561-326X
UR  - https://formative.jmir.org/2021/8/e26887
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2196/26887
UR  - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34420914
DO  - 10.2196/26887
ID  - info:doi/10.2196/26887
ER  -