Employer Hospital Price Transparency Project

Employers and other health care purchasers need answers amidst rising and unsustainable health care cost.

In 2017, the Employers’ Forum of Indiana commissioned RAND Corporation to conduct the first hospital price transparency study in the U.S. where comparative prices are publicly noted at the hospital level. In order to benchmark these findings, a subsequent study (RAND 2.0) was completed in May 2019 with data from employers in 25 states and and 1,598 U.S. hospitals. In September 2020, RAND 3.0 was published including more than $33B in claims from employers in 49 states and the District of Columbia and analyzed prices for hospital services in 3,112 U.S. hospitals. These studies disrupted the protected knowledge of how much employers pay for health care and have created an unprecedented lens into the differences in the payment amounts made by commercial health plans in comparison to Medicare. As of December 21, 2020, employers are being recruited for RAND 4.0 to be released in 2022.

Simply knowing hospital prices is not enough to align payment with value. The Employers’ Forum of Indiana and RAND Corporation created this Employer Price Transparency Project website to compile the Price Transparency Studies conducted by RAND researchers. This website offers customizable tools, resources, and strategies purchasers can use to translate hospital pricing data into meaningful action.