Committed to transparency in healthcare pricing
The Alliance for Medical Price Transparency is a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, whose mission is to make the often murky world of healthcare pricing more transparent and accessible. We do this by supporting efforts that provide medical price transparency, and educating patients regarding the often vast differences in prices between various institutions for the same procedure within a given metropolitan area.
Our team obtains up-to-date medical pricing information from Turquoise Health which periodically scans the websites of healthcare facilities to access their cash pay prices. We have funded the development, maintenance and marketing of MedPal.health, a medical price transparency website (www.Medpal.health)
which compares cash pay prices of the most commonly performed exams, tests and procedures in the Tulsa, Oklahoma metropolitan area. MedPal.health’s goal is to bring cash pay medical pricing information to the public in a free, user friendly format, giving patients and their families comparison pricing, thus allowing access to more affordable care.
Please reach us at ampt.tulsa@gmail.com if you cannot find an answer to your question or have suggestions.
Healthcare is the only industry in America where we consume the service without having any idea of the cost.
Half of Americans say they’ve delayed or skipped medical care due to cost, and 58% say they’d shop around for medical procedures if pricing information was available.
Medical debt is the most common cause of bankruptcy in the U.S.
Price shopping in healthcare is difficult because medical care, terminology and pricing is complex.
Providers set pricing, which is unregulated and can be wildly variable.
Insurance companies’ revenue is a percentage of healthcare costs. This means that they may have little incentive to help their customers shop for the most competitive pricing — perhaps even the opposite.
Consumers rarely ask for or have the ability to see pricing upfront before consuming health care.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) requires all hospitals to make all their pricing transparent on their websites, however these prices are still difficult to access and understand.
All healthcare providers in Oklahoma are required by law to publish cash-pay pricing information, but many either don’t comply or make it hard to find.
AMPT works with Turquoise Health who collects pricing data from the machine readable files (MRF) and patient estimator tools (PET) on hospital websites
AMPT supports the development, maintenance and marketing of like MedPal.health, a website committed to delivering healthcare pricing in a more transparent and understandable format. The ability to compare pricing prior to consuming healthcare makes care more accessible and affordable.
"Cash pay" or "self pay" simply means that the patient pays with cash, check or credit card and not based on an insurance plan. Now we get to the confusing part:
Hospitals have different rates for each specific test, exam or procedure that they will list on their rate sheet called a “Chargemaster”. That is usually the highest price. They will then negotiate with insurance companies another rate that is lower than the “Chargemaster price”, and each insurance company may have a different rate for each of their different plans. This is where insurance companies let their customers know that they have procured significant cost savings for their customers with the “Negotiated price”.
The “Cash-Pay price” can oftentimes be significantly lower than both the Chargemaster price and the Negotiated price. This can be a very attractive and more affordable option for people without insurance, or those that might have a high deductible plan or that will not likely reach their deductible.
AMPT focuses on cash pay pricing because the pricing is more defined, understandable and relatable for the uninsured and underinsured population that is most vulnerable to medical debt and bankruptcy.
Trying to determine insurance pricing of healthcare with the dozens of plans and their associated copays, deductibles, etc. is much more complex due to all of these variables.
See the 'Get Involved' section of the dropdown menu for examples of efforts being made in support of price transparency
-Want to make a difference?
-Ask all medical professionals about pricing
-Ask about cash pay discounts
-Support legislation that encourages medical price transparency
Some Recent Articles in the news that speak to the current state of medical price transparency
https://pirg.org/articles/healthcare-price-transparency-could-save-1-trillion-in-annual-costs/
https://heyzine.com/flip-book/Tulsa-Medicine-January-2025#page/4
Questions or Suggestions? Please reach us at ampt.tulsa@gmail.com
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