Site-neutral payment: Price transparency and primary care

Price transparency could become a selling point for independent medical practices that emphasize affordability and quality. Christopher M. Whaley, Ph.D., associate professor, health services, policy and practice, and associate director of the Center for Advancing Health Policy through Research at Brown University, offers this explanation. He’s the co-author of a Health Affairs analysis of 2026 Medicare physician payment.

Medical Economics: Do you think that that idea and philosophy and, frankly, regulation will trickle down to independent medical practices?

Christopher M. Whaley, Ph.D.: I think so. I think that whether it's price transparency or just the growing concern around rising health care spending and health care affordability, there is a opportunity for independent providers to basically position themselves as lower cost, efficient, and higher quality providers, and to use that efficiency argument, I think, to capture market share, excellent. And I would say, we have seen several groups doing that.

So there are several surgical groups in the state of Indiana, there's a well known surgery center in Oklahoma, and that's their value proposition that they are transparent pricing, more affordable, and I think they've been fairly successful.