How important is pricing transparency in medicine to you?
And why doctors sometimes don't publish their prices
I had an interesting conversation with a colleague last night that I would like to get your opinion on.
He had recently increased his practice's revenue significantly by hiding his prices and only sharing them with patients at the end of a long discovery process, designed to convince them to purchase a large program of care.
I have no problem with people buying or selling programs of care.
But I asked him, "how do you feel about hiding your prices until the last minute like that?"
He replied, "It's fine. They won't understand the value of what I'm offering until I've had time to explain it to them anyway."
I recently published the prices at my practice, as you may have read here.
What do you think about this?
What do you think of the practice of hiding prices in healthcare? Post your thoughts in the comments.
More than a few people cautioned me against publishing my prices, arguing that, "patients won't understand the value, you'll scare away business, and it will hurt your bottom line."
I published them anyway.
What do you think of my programs and memberships? They're here, if you haven't seen them yet.
Let me know in the comments.
If you aren't sure which one is right for you, you get a complementary discovery call when you apply for consultation. Our Practice Membership Evaluation is only $95. During that appointment, a member of my team will give you our honest opinion on what's best for you regarding our memberships or programs. You can apply for consultation here. I anticipate that we will be accepting patients for the next five months, after which we are likely to close our doors to new patients until we can train new staff.
Until next time, be well,
Dr. Stillman
I wouldn't want that doctor to treat me! I thought the doctor/patient relationship was built on trust. Where's that in this scenario? I certainly distance myself from him in other ways as well. Just saying...
Even Medicare is now insisting on hospitals' transparency in costs. I agree with the previous post--health insurance companies have made consumers unaware of health care costs and it's absolutely not right (but pretty ignorant of people to not care or forget to ask!).