Employer Price Transparency Studies

The Employer Price Transparency Studies are comprehensive reports that are part of an ongoing employer-led initiative to measure and report publicly the prices paid for hospital care at the hospital and service-line level. In an effort to create transparent hospital pricing, Employers’ Forum of Indiana and RAND Corporation have worked together since 2017 to compile claims data to compare hospital prices across the country.

View a summary of the Employer Price Transparency Studies and organizations that have analyzed the data and/or cited these studies in their own reports.

PT5.1 (RAND 5.1) Demographics

On December 10th, RAND Corporation released an update to round five of its employer-led price transparency study. This update (RAND 5.1) incorporates additional claims data and refinements to their original analysis. The Employer Price Transparency Studies have provided hospital pricing analysis for employers to be better-informed shoppers for health plans and provider networks and to report hospital prices relative to a Medicare benchmark for:

$80.2

Billion dollars in hospital spending

$3.1

Billion dollars in ambulatory surgery center spending

4,000+

Hospitals

States + DC*

*Maryland is excluded due to their all-payer rate-setting program

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Sage Transparency

Sage Transparency is a free, public-facing tool designed to offer a clear, unbiased view of hospital price, cost, and quality data, as well as price data for ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs) and physician-administered medications. Along with other data sources, Sage Transparency 2.0 includes data from the latest Employer Price Transparency Study, PT5.1.

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2017 – 2024

All Price Transparency Studies

See results and analysis for each of the Employer Price Transparency Studies, covering prices from 2013 to present. Each study is available, free of charge and in its entirety.

PT5.1 (RAND 5.1)

Updated Dec 2024

A study of hospital prices from hospitals and ambulatory surgery centers from across the nation plus price variability among physician administered medications, conducted by RAND.

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