In The Know - MEDSEEK News and Expert Opinion on the eHealth Industry

Healthcare - At What Cost? The Need for Price Transparency Continues to Grow

With Meaningful Use, ACOs and the move towards quality-based reimbursements, hospitals are making great strides towards putting the patient at the center of care, except when it comes to cost.

The success of healthcare reform depends upon hospitals and providers engaging patients and equipping them with the tools they need to manage their own health. These tools include secure Internet access to personal health records and family accounts, the ability to go online and self-schedule appointments, see labs and test results, request prescription refills, and communicate with physicians and care team members, ask them questions and share information from home health monitoring devices.

Healthcare providers are forgetting that patients bear the brunt of spiraling healthcare costs and are being forced to shop around for healthcare services, to become healthcare consumers. While great strides are being made to support the patient, the emergence of the healthcare consumer is being ignored.

Consumers expect to be able to compare prices. It’s possibly the single-most important factor when making a major purchasing decision, and there can be no doubt that healthcare services can be major purchases. So why don’t healthcare consumers get to see the price tag before they buy? After all, hospitals provide quality scores, patient charters, and other consumer-like information. Why not the cost?

Read the recent LA Times article:
Healthcare pricing still a struggle for consumers
Comparison shopping for medical procedures can involve a web of billing codes and arcane terminology, despite efforts in California to simplify things.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-adv-medical-prices-20120415,0,7106684.story

Transparency at what cost?

As hospitals, insurers work to be more upfront on their pricing, questions remain over demand for the data and its usefulness

Article by: Cinda Becker

Hospitals from around the nation converge on Omaha to share cost and quality transparency best practices

Last week Alegent Health and MEDSEEK hosted the inaugural "Power to the Patient"forum in Omaha, Neb. The purpose of the hands-on, practical workshop was to share Alegent's experiences in deploying MyCost [cost transparency web-based application] with health systems around the nation. With more than 45 attendees from over 10 organizations from diverse markets converging to learn how to enhance the experience their patients and community has with their organizations, we can say the event was a huge success.

MyCost was born out of Alegent's decision to offer a consumer-driven health plan (CDHP) option for its 8,500 employees, and the need for transparency in enabling consumers [their employees] to make informed decisions based on quality and cost of service.

As a result of strong leadership, and the desire to do the right thing for it's employees and community, MyCost and Quality Reports were published via Alegent's web site in early 2007 and late 2006, respectively.

The service, despite early trepidation, has been widely adopted by the community and the forum was conceived by Alegent and MEDSEEK to share their successes and lessons learned with other organizations.

To learn more about Alegent Health's experience read their case study.

 

Alegent Health delivers price transparency to its community

Seems as though Algent Health is on a roll. We just learned they were featured in December 2007 issue of Healthcare Informatics. The article is entitled Pulling Back the Curtains (great title by the way) and features several hospital systems delivering price transparency to their community.

In January 2007, a ground-breaking online application called My Cost, conceived by Alegent Health and MEDSEEK, went live. My Cost provides consumers with information on fees and estimated out-of-pocket costs for nearly 500 common treatments, based on the consumer's individual health plan or financial situation. Uninsured consumers have access to a list of self-pay prices for frequently purchased services as well as information on financial assistance programs for needed services that are cost-prohibitive.

In demonstrating its commitment to price transparency Alegent Health and MEDSEEK are conducting a two-day hands-on workshop on the topic called POWER TO THE PATIENT. This practical workshop is available to all hospital and we encourage you to sign-up, as space is limited.

In addition to the article in Healthcare Information, feel free to read Alegent's success story published within our web site.

Web-based Patient Empowerment

Many industries must balance increasing costs with market constraints on maximum prices, including the pass-through costs to consumers. As challending as this scenario may be, several industry leaders effectively have addressed these issues throughout the past decade.

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