If I needed some kind of elective or non-emergency procedure, they would be high on my list (along with medical tourism to foreign countries where procedures are also clearly priced, and even cheaper)
I've recently been having pretty good luck going to medical providers and offering cash (I have Kaiser insurance now, which I basically treat as emergency/catastrophic only, since they never cover any providers I'd want to see, so I basically end up paying cash.). I was able to get a dermatologist to go from $600+ to $95 because cash.
The thing that is really bizarre to me is that I've more than once seen people quite prices for non-emergency procedures in the US that are more expensive than taking a business class flight to London, checking into a high end hotel and getting treated at a top private hospital targeting mostly rich people... Of course it's less convenient than being treated near your home, but the difference can be significant.
This works okay if the patient is resident or is an EU citizen, and so is entitled to be treated by the public system (though it's arguably an effective subsidy of the private system by the public system), but I wouldn't have thought it'd be feasible for non-resident foreign citizens.
Many, like e.g. HCA International explicitly advertise to an international client base, and tout their large numbers of ICU beds as one of their features, so would rarely expect to need to transfer patients.
One thing that certainly does bring costs down in the UK is that the system is geared heavily towards maximizing utilization of resources by e.g. allowing the NHS trusts to take on private work, and allowing NHS doctors to take on work at private clinics, and allowing private clinics to rent NHS resources, so you may very well find that your treatment by a private healthcare company involves being operated in an NHS hospital by an NHS consultant on their spare time. But while they certainly then benefit from economies of scale, all of this happens on commercial terms - e.g. NHS trusts use profits from renting out capacity to offset parts of their running costs.
The biggest private providers do have their own operating theatres and ICU's, but they too tend to have NHS staff working part time or consulting and may still rent NHS resources where it makes sense.
The cost to visitors of NHS treatment is 1.5x the NHS rate. Some stuff is exempt.
Here's the official guidance: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/guidance-on-overs...
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/guidance-on-overs...
I ended up dropping dental insurance and just pay cash, even for a family of 4, it is cheaper, assuming the kids brush their teeth.
What will likely happen is that aggregators / bloggers / journalists will start comparing prices and write about the differences. People will see the articles. And in a moment of crisis, they'll potentially think about the ones they read about, remembering one hospital or another.
And even if they don't, the mere fact of comparison articles (and likely outrage from normal people in the comments sections, etc), will create competitive pressure driving prices closer together. At that point, people won't need to search for the specific price for a hospital because all will likely be similar.
Are you kidding me? If a patient is in so much pain that they can't make rational decisions about their care or feel that their care is urgent enough that they don't have time to look at prices, they should probably be in the ER anyway. For the 95% of patients not in this situation, having tangible pricing will be beneficial. Furthermore, for patients in seriously debilitating conditions, many have caregivers that can look into procedure finances.