So your point on items covered by insurers is right with the caveat that way more patients are now on high deductible plans, so your out of pocket cost still gets impacted by the contract rates even if the provider is in network.
Agree on electives - there’s something to do there price wise but it’s not the most straightforward.
Re: pricing in general, it def matters in the decision but how you present it makes a huge difference. For uninsured people our flu map has actually been super critical (people are more likely to choose an option with a price at all and marginally more likely to choose a lower priced option (the price spreads are lower bc it’s a simple procedure but there are some places where you can pay over $100 for a flu shot - no one chooses those once they know)
The nit here is you have to give a person the ability to a) select their insurance, and b) show them the full out of pocket cost (copay + deductible) and then it makes a difference, which favors a logged in experience (like solv or Zocdoc) over a logged out experience. But I’m convinced that the reason it’s hard to see today is not because people don’t care about price. It’s because they don’t get to price discriminate at all.
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So your point on items covered by insurers is right with the caveat that way more patients are now on high deductible plans, so your out of pocket cost still gets impacted by the contract rates even if the provider is in network.
Agree on electives - there’s something to do there price wise but it’s not the most straightforward.
Re: pricing in general, it def matters in the decision but how you present it makes a huge difference. For uninsured people our flu map has actually been super critical (people are more likely to choose an option with a price at all and marginally more likely to choose a lower priced option (the price spreads are lower bc it’s a simple procedure but there are some places where you can pay over $100 for a flu shot - no one chooses those once they know)
The nit here is you have to give a person the ability to a) select their insurance, and b) show them the full out of pocket cost (copay + deductible) and then it makes a difference, which favors a logged in experience (like solv or Zocdoc) over a logged out experience. But I’m convinced that the reason it’s hard to see today is not because people don’t care about price. It’s because they don’t get to price discriminate at all.