CHARLOTTE, N.C. — If you've been to the hospital lately, or even a doctor's office, you are familiar with the feeling of sticker shock that comes with receiving the bill in the mail.
The bill is often steep, often surprising, even if you have good insurance.
"Last fall, I had a procedure that took eight minutes, that cost $6,000," Dale Folwell, North Carolina State Treasurer, said.
Long before Folwell suffered his own sticker shock, he was on a campaign to make the state's largest hospitals more transparent amount costs and pricing.
Last year, the federal government established a new rule to require more transparency in pricing, but in a pandemic, execution has been uneven across the country.
"They have power everywhere. They control the supply of healthcare. They control the access to health care, and they control the price of health care," Folwell said.
Folwell cited Tryon Medical in Charlotte as a medical group that is upfront and transparent about pricing.
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