Shopping is usually relatively simple: you decide what you want, look up a few prices online to find out where you can get the best deal, buy and move on with your day.

It isnt nearly that easy when what you need to buy is health care services, for a host of reasons. The possibility of complications, questions about your insurance and the way billing is set up all can make it difficult to figure out what you will pay for a procedure, but there are steps you can take to try to lower your costs, or at least have an idea of what they should be before going under the knife.

Kevin Han, chief financial officer at Stormont-Vail HealthCare, said the hospital offers the average charges for some common procedures on its website, but those are only a starting point. Customer service representatives can help patients to come up with a most accurate estimate of their out-of-pocket costs, he said.

The charge is not the same as what youre going to end up owing, he said.

Health care reform requires hospitals to make their charges available to patients. Average charges dont account for different services that a patient might need along with a procedure, however, Han said.

There is a lot of variability in the services performed even if the procedure is pretty much the same, he said.

Officials with St. Francis Health couldnt be reached for comment about their billing practices.

The provider, such as a surgeon or obstetrician, also bills separately, so patients who know they are going to have a procedure in advance should get an estimate from their provider, Han said. All of the Cotton-ONeil clinic physicians have the same contracts with Stormont-Vail, but independent doctors who use the hospital might have a different arrangement, he said. The anesthesiologist also bills separately, if one is needed for the procedure.

Insurance plans vary in the types of charges patients are responsible for. Three of the most common are copayments, co-insurance and deductibles. Copayments and co-insurance both are a portion of a service the patient has to pay for. The difference is that a co-pay is a flat charge, such as $15 per office visit, while co-insurance is a percentage of the total bill, such as charging patients 20 percent of the cost of their hospital stay. The deductible is how much the patient has to pay in a given year before insurance begins paying for most services.

How much a patient pays can change from month to month if he or she hasnt yet met the insurance deductible, Han said. If you have a procedure before you have used many health care services this year, you may pay more out of pocket than if you can have it done after you have met your deductible.

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Shopping around is complicated in health care