California has launched a $3.9 million federally-funded platform, California Healthcare Compare, allowing consumers to access healthcare price and quality rating information at the touch of a button. The comparison tool can be used to compare the price of common medical procedures, estimate how much insurance will pay, and what out-of-pocket expenses will cost. This will enable them to make better decisions about where to seek medical care.
Price information for the site was provided by Truven Health Analytics, which gathered data from 10 million claims between 2010 and 2013.
California State Insurance Commission Dave Jones explains, “The time for greater transparency for healthcare costs is long overdue. Consumers have been in the dark about the price of medical services from one medical provider and facility to the next and certainly haven’t had cost information paired with quality measures to help them determine where they will get the best value.
“Purchasing healthcare now is like shopping with a bag over your head. The Healthcare Compare website makes it possible for Californians to search for common medical procedures, to get average and a range of prices in their area, and to compare medical providers based on quality measures-before making the important decision about where to seek medical care. This is also a first step toward convincing doctors, hospitals, insurers and legislators of the benefits of sharing more detailed price information to allow consumers faced with high deductible plans to make better decisions about how to spend their scarce dollars.”
According to Healthcare Dive, Colorado and Maine have engaged in similar efforts at price transparency but concerns remain regarding the level of data available and whether consumers can use it effectively. Additionally, some experts question whether consumers will use a third-party website to compare prices.
“This website would not be possible in most states, because the information simply isn’t available,” said R. Adams Dudley, MD, Director of UCSF’s Center for Healthcare Value. “Because of the advocacy of California consumer and business groups and the vision of California’s insurers and providers, we have much more information about quality of care than most states. Therefore, we can, for instance, tell a pregnant woman not only about the C-section rate at a hospital and whether she’ll be allowed to try for a vaginal delivery if she’s had a C-section before, but also what percent of women at that hospital learn to breast feed before going home and how often complications happen.”
As long as funding remains available, Dudley told Kaiser Health News the platform will continue to evolve and grow with the potential to add quality and cost data for more conditions and cost data for individual hospitals and physicians’ groups.
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