New Resource: Leveraging Reference-Based Pricing to Contain Hospital Prices

Health care costs continue to rise, largely driven by increasingly high prices charged by hospitals. This trend impacts patients, employers, and state and federal governments in significant ways – costs go up, health care value stagnates, quality does not improve, and health inequities are made worse. With cuts to state budgets and Medicaid programs looming, policymakers are increasingly pursuing solutions to lower hospital prices in order to reign in soaring health care spending. 

One emerging solution available for state policymakers is to directly limit the prices hospitals charge by implementing reference-based pricing within programs states run or regulate. Reference-based pricing provides the opportunity to constrain cost growth, generating significant savings for states and employers while lowering premiums and out-of-pocket costs for people.  

USofCare’s newest resource dives into reference-based pricing, the benefits, and offers key considerations when designing a reference-based pricing policy to help inform policymakers, advocates, and other stakeholders looking to advance this solution.