Examining legislation and trends in healthcare pricing: A research agenda for consumer well‐being

Abstract

Healthcare costs continue to rise considerably in the United States; one proposed solution is to give consumers more choices regarding their healthcare decisions. Recent legislation has the aim of making healthcare pricing more transparent and providing consumers with an increased understanding of costs. This article offers a research agenda for studying healthcare price transparency and provides an overview of several potential implications for consumers. The authors review the recent legislation and its intended impact on consumer shopping in the healthcare market. Research propositions are focused on healthcare as a unique decision context, the power and peril of price information, the emerging healthcare information market, and individual differences in consumers. The authors also illustrate some of these issues with a price transparency dataset. Opportunities for future research and implications for marketing, healthcare providers, and policymakers are offered.