How Common Procedures Became 20 Percent Cheaper for Many Californians

 The California Public Employees’ Retirement System (Calpers) started paying hospitals differently for 450,000 of its members beginning in 2011. It set a maximum contribution it would make toward what a hospital was paid for knee and hip replacement surgery, colonoscopies, cataract removalsurgery and several other elective procedures. Under the new approach, called reference pricing, patients who wished to get a procedure at a higher-priced hospital paid the difference themselves.

For example, in 2011 the Calpers maximum contribution for a knee or hip replacement surgery was set at $30,000. A Calpers patient receiving knee or hip replacement surgery at or below this reference price paid the usual cost-sharing: 20 percent of the cost, up to a maximum of $3,000. But a patient electing to use a hospital that charged, say, $40,000 paid the usual cost-sharing in addition to the $10,000 above the reference price.

As Calpers initiated the new approach, 41 of the several hundred hospitals in California could provide knee and hip replacement procedures at or below $30,000 and with acceptable quality, as measured by things like low readmission rates and high rates of use of guideline infection controls. Some hospitals charged more than $100,000 for the procedures.

For knee and hip replacements, lower-priced hospitals saw their market share increase by 28 percent. As higher-priced ones lost market share, many chose to reduce their prices. Prices for the procedures fell by an average of more than 20 percent, saving Calpers and its patients $6 million over two years.