The Challenge of Understanding Health Care Costs and Charges

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

Health care prices are opaque, and patients and clinicians are equally in the dark about them. As Americans enroll in high-deductible health plans at unprecedented rates, the affordability of health care has received significant attention In 2015, "how much does it cost?" is an increasingly familiar question from clinical trainees. The problem is that right now it is not clear who has the answers. The costs of delivering care are obscured in layers of jargon and complex accounting