Despite some between-[[hospital]] heterogeneity, Olufawo et al. showed significantly higher [[price]] variability between [[insurer]]s than between [[hospital]]s. Their single system analysis limits the ability to generalize, but the results suggest that savings depend more on hospital and provider negotiations than patient price shopping, given the difficulty of switching [[insurer]]s
((Olufawo MO, Evans SS, Stecher PT, Youkilis SL, Dibble CF, Greenberg JK, Ray WZ, Hamilton BH, Leuthardt EC. Making Meaningful Use of [[Price Transparency]] Data: Describing Price Variation of Spine Surgery and Imaging in a Single System. Neurosurgery. 2022 Jun 23. doi: 10.1227/neu.0000000000002062. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 35876670.)).