Doctors Pay Less for Lab Tests When They Know the Cost, Hospital Saved $400,000

When it comes to cost, a new study from researchers at John Hopkins Hospital shows that doctors will choose cheaper alternatives for lab tests.

Researchers looked at the price on various blood tests for six months and found the use of tests declined 9 percent, saving the hospital $400,000 over a six month period.

Hospitals don't normally display the price of tests to doctors, according to various reports.

 "We generally don't make decisions based on what is cost-effective or what is known to be absolutely necessary for our patients, but knowing the cost of things appears to make us more thoughtful about what we think might be best for their health," said Dr. Leonard S. Feldman, an assistant professor of medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and leader of the study, said in a statement.  "There's a lot of waste in medicine because we don't have a sense of the costs of much of what we do."

When doctors did get to see the prices, they generally chose the cheapest available. Exceptions included the most expensive diagnostic tests, where researchers guests that these specialized tests may have had no likely alternatives. Feldman said the study's results don't necessarily mean doctors should always choose the less expensive test. Sometimes it is best to order many tests when doctors are stumped about the diagnosis of a patient. The tests may be cheaper than keeping the patient in the hospital while doctors figure out what is wrong.

The results of the study were published online in JAMA Internal Medicine.