Jeff Rice updates us:

For industry insiders, it is common knowledge that buying healthcare at hospitals’ and doctors’ regular prices is worse than buying a car at full sticker price- many times worse because the "billed charges" are often 2 to 5 times the normal price. A new Web site offers ZIP code-specific fair pricing information for healthcare services including hospitalization, surgery, physician services, labs, imaging, dental and more.

If patients don’t know how much something should cost, it is almost impossible to get a fair deal. Even patients with good insurance need to be careful, deductibles and co-pays keep rising and in-network pricing can vary a lot.

Consumers can look up fair pricing amounts for free at www.healthcarebluebook.com