Is it cheaper to pay for medical care without health insurance?

With the cost of health insurance set to rise, some Americans are asking a surprising question: Is it actually cheaper to get medical care without it

With the cost of health insurance set to rise, some Americans are asking a surprising question: Is it actually cheaper to get medical care without it?

The short answer: Sometimes. But not often. And it may require a little — or a lot — of homework.

Some hospitals and clinics offer self-pay or cash only discounts for patients who pay without insurance, skipping the paperwork and administrative fees that come with having coverage. Hospitals are required by federal law to make their discounted cash prices publicly available online. An allergy test or an X-ray, for example, may be a few hundred dollars cheaper this way, especially for people with high deductible plans. Nonprofit hospitals must provide charity care, which is free or discounted, to people who can’t afford it, even for those with insurance.

But paying outside of health insurance means that cost doesn’t count toward your deductible or out-of-pocket limit — and if you end up needing more medical visits than expected, you could wind up worse off financially.

“You have to be really careful,” said Stacie Dusetzina, a health policy professor at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. “The price that you pay with cash, even if they give you some sort of advertised discount, can be more than what you might actually pay through health insurance overall.”