Author Date

2021-12-03

Degree Name

Department

Information Systems

College

Marriott School of Management

Defense Date

2021-12-10

Publication Date

2022-02-16

First Faculty Advisor

Jeff Jenkins

First Faculty Reader

Bill Tayler

Honors Coordinator

Steve Liddle

Keywords

pricing, transparency, healthcare, cost, legislation, data

Abstract

Industries are not incentivized to price reasonably and spend responsibly if consumers do not have the ability to shop around within that industry, and shopping around is not possible without pricing transparency (knowing how much a good or service costs before purchasing it). But in the healthcare industry, we typically default to whichever clinic or hospital is closest, with no prior knowledge of what costs we can expect to incur at that particular institution. According to a poll published by Harvard University, nine out of ten Americans feel the healthcare industry is too opaque and greater transparency is needed.

We are currently standing at a very exciting crossroads of mounting insistence on pricing transparency, and an unprecedented amount of publicly available raw data. The task at hand involves taking the data published by hospitals and formatting it in a way that is informative and consumable to a typical patient, allowing them to make informed decisions as a consumer, ultimately driving an era of reduced waste and competitive pricing in the healthcare industry.