WASHINGTON — The Obama administration has given the go-ahead for insurers and employers to use a new cost-control strategy that puts a hard dollar limit on what health plans pay for some expensive procedures, such as knee and hip replacements.

Some experts worry that such a move would surprise patients who pick more expensive hospitals. The cost difference would leave them with big medical bills that they’d have to pay themselves.

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A new pricing strategy for Obama’s health-care law could leave patients with big medical bills for procedures whose costs exceed federal guidelines. Reuters

That could undercut key financial protections in President Obama’s health care law that apply not just to the new health insurance exchanges, but to most job-based coverage as well. Others say it’s a valuable tool to reduce costs and help check premiums.

Some federal regulators appear to be concerned. A recent administration policy ruling went to unusual lengths, acknowledging that the cost-control strategy “may be a subterfuge” for “otherwise prohibited limitations on coverage.”

Nonetheless, the departments of Labor and Health and Human Services said the practice – known as reference pricing – could continue. Plans must use a “reasonable method” to ensure “adequate access to quality providers.” Regulators asked for public comment, saying they may publish further guidance in the future.

HHS spokeswoman Erin Shields Britt said the administration is monitoring the effects of reference pricing on access to quality services and will work to ensure that financial protections for consumers are not undermined.

One way the new approach is different is that it sets a dollar limit on what the health plan will pay for a given procedure. Most insurance now pays a percentage of costs, and those costs themselves can vary from hospital to hospital. Now if you pick a more expensive hospital, the insurance still pays the same percentage.

The new strategy works like this:

Your health insurance plan slaps a hard limit on what it will pay for certain procedures, for example, hospital charges associated with knee and hip replacement operations. That’s called the reference price.

Say the limit is $30,000. The plan offers you a choice of hospitals within its provider network. If you pick one that charges $40,000, you would owe $10,000 to the hospital plus your regular cost-sharing for the $30,000 that your plan covers.

The extra $10,000 is treated like an out-of-network expense, and it doesn’t count toward your plan’s annual limit on out-of-pocket costs.

That’s crucial because under the health care law, most plans have to pick up the entire cost of care after a patient hits the annual out-of-pocket limit, currently $6,350 for single coverage and $12,700 for a family plan. Before the May 2 administration ruling, it was unclear whether reference pricing violated this key financial protection for consumers.

Some experts are concerned.

“The problem … from the patient’s perspective is that at the end of the day, that is who gets left holding the bag,” said Karen Pollitz of the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation.

Robert Berenson, a physician and health policy expert at the Urban Institute think tank, said he worries that advocates of reference pricing may be overlooking quality differences.

“There are differences in MRIs and in how a hip replacement is done,” he said. “If you are going to say ‘Our judgment is better than your doctor’s,’ then you’ve got to meet tests that you are actually assuring quality and safety.”

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