Price Check

People without health insurance and those with high-deductible policies often have strong incentives to weigh the cost of medical care. Starting this week, a Colorado company called HealthGrades is offering consumers price quotes for dozens of procedures, including cataract surgery, hysterectomy and the implanting of a pacemaker.

The idea is to reveal the going rate for a medical service that a person may soon need to buy. Shopping around for a vasectomy, for example? You would learn that the average price for an uninsured patient in the Washington area is $764. (If an insurer is covering the procedure, the patient would pay just $98 out-of-pocket, with the health plan chipping in another $406.) Inpatient and outpatient procedures are included, and each report itemizes drug costs, lab tests, hospital fees and other expenses typically associated with that procedure.

HealthGrades, which also issues assessments on the quality of hospitals, nursing homes and physicians, says its price reports -- $7.95 each -- are based on data from 80 insurers and employer-sponsored health plans from around the country.

How Y'all Figure That? One caveat is that the figures are based on data covering very large areas. Washington, for example, is considered part of "the South," which stretches from Delaware to Texas. HealthGrades spokesman Scott Shapiro admits that prices may vary considerably across this region. "Costs inside Washington might be very different than [in] rural Georgia," he agreed, but "this is the most granular information that's available."

At a minimum, Shapiro said, a HealthGrades price "gives you a benchmark to go by," which can be helpful in considering fees or negotiating with a provider.

Reality Check Asked what a vasectomy patient without insurance would pay in the Washington area, Craig Whitaker, billing manager for two Fairfax urologists, said "most offices . . . charge between about $800 and $1,000."

While the HealthGrades data do not compare prices within regions, they do show variations from one part of the country to another. A gastric bypass operation, for instance, runs $60,000 in the South and a mere $35,600 in the West.

Interested? Learn more at http://www.healthgrades.com . But be aware that federal officials are preparing to start posting certain prices paid by Medicare and other government health programs; this information would be available to consumers for free.

-- Tom Graham