Opportunity

Research indicates that close to 30 percent of laboratory tests in the United States are not needed. 

Intervention

We ran a randomized clinical trial at three hospitals in Philadelphia to explore if price transparency at the time of order entry could influence clinician ordering behavior by nudging them to consider whether the potential benefits would be worth the cost. 

We selected 60 of the most expensive and frequently ordered inpatient laboratory tests and randomly assigned half of them to display Medicare fees in the electronic health record at the time of order entry.

Impact

Over the course of a year, we found no significant overall effect on clinician ordering behavior. This finding indicates that future interventions will need to be better targeted, framed, or combined with other approaches to achieve success.