Reference no: EM132295077

One of this week’s readings is the New Steps and New Tools: Transparency and Reference-based Pricing. The theme of the article is that health services consumers now have ‘skin in the game’ or the incentives to seek out the best quality, lowest price health services. The article suggests that new consumer tools are being launched to give the health service consumer the information they need to make informed choices. These tools include ‘real time’ information (transparency) and reference-based pricing which takes the information and matches it with quality and pricing information I a local market to give the health services consumer side-by-side comparisons on quality and price. In addition to this article, check out: healthcarebluebook.com Then share some of your observations and thoughts with your classmates. For example: Do you think customers want transparency and reference-based pricing tools, do they want that much empowerment? Should pricing decisions remain with the payers? What are the incentives for patients/clients to search a reference-based database like healthcarebluebook for information? Do you work for a health services organization that engages in reference-base pricing databases? Feel free to address one of these questions, or if your readings and research lead you to other conclusions, please feel free to share that as well. As always, feel free to comment on or expand upon one of your classmates’ postings. This is not a term paper. Keep it short and focus on one point per post. Let your classmates have something to talk about to which you can add. Make sure to support your statements and conclusions.