It’s a great idea—being able to look up what your local providers and hospitals charge for a particular treatment and being able to make informed decisions about your health care.
A new website: www.Pricing.FloridaHealthFinder.gov can let you do that. IN THEORY. For example, a routine colonoscopy at St Lucie Surgery Center will run you $1,817. At Tradition Hospital, the same routine colonoscopy costs $4,048. The Florida state average cost for this procedure is lower than both of these numbers.
BUT, although it’s good in theory, as a practical matter, most of the procedures and visits listed on the site don’t contain any local information about costs. Until the local hospitals and health care providers begin releasing their costs to be included in this website, the health care consumers (You and me) will still be in the dark and be unable to compare costs.
