Hospitals and clinicians pricing/fee variations between Regions and Hospitals : Does it actually exist or just a suspicion

Background/Objective: Compared to most of the South Asian nations Sri Lanka enjoys commendable health outcomes. The Sri Lankan health system is a combination of both private and public sectors. The number of private health institutions have grown rapidly in recent years. The aim of this study was to examine pricing/fees variations across private healthcare sector in Sri Lanka. Method: This study explored whether there are pricing/fees variations in hospitals and clinician's , across ten of the most commonly performed surgical/medical procedures within eight leading private hospitals distributed across three provinces in Sri Lanka. Results: Findings revealed that the pricing/fees variations were statistically significant (P <.001) across all eight hospitals and between three provinces, for ten procedures tested for both hospital fees and total fees. Pricing variations of the clinician's fees were statistically significant (P <.001) across all ten procedures, except for one. Conclusion: Unilateral price/fees fixing by private healthcare providers and the subsequent information asymmetry could be the main reason for the significant pricing/fees variations that exist between hospitals within and outside provinces/regions in hospital and clinician's fees. Policy makers can consider bench marking the mean values of the prices/fees charged by the clinicians against the national per capita income of the population to refine policy parameters on pricing.