Leading Examples

It is an individual's right to know the price and quality of healthcare procedures and outcomes. In order for the individual to make knowledgeable healthcare decisions, the public must have access to substantial but easy-to-understand information regarding quality and cost of specified procedures at hospitals, long-term care facilities and outpatient facilities. Additionally, individuals should be able to obtain up-to-date and accurate information about adoption of technologies and practices proven to increase patient safety.

In this space, CHT is delighted to highlight a selection of leading Right-to-Know tools/examples which are already active today. The following websites represent resources provided by both government and private organizations.

Public Sector

ACCESS NYC - a free service that identifies and screens for over 20 City, State, and Federal human service benefit programs. You may use this service anonymously or you have the option to create an account.

Hospitalcompare.hhs.gov - Created through the efforts of CMS and organizations representing various health stakeholders Hospital Compare is a tool which provides free information on how well hospitals care for adult patients with certain medical conditions.

California Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development Healthcare Quality & Analysis Division - To help improve transparency in California, the state in July began requiring hospitals to submit annually a copy of a so-called chargemaster, which contains prices of all services, goods and procedures for which a separate charge exists.

Comparecarewv.gov - Developed by the state Health Care Authority, this website allows residents of West Virginia to compare average prices for medical procedures or services at 300 of the state's health care facilities. It enables users to see the breakdown of hospital and physician costs by zip code and specific medical procedure.

FloridaHealthStat.com - The Florida Health Care Administration's (AHCA) new website is “the first step in an ambitious program.” This site will ultimately give Florida’s health care consumers, purchasers and professionals an unprecedented degree of easy-to-access and understandable information on quality, pricing and performance.

MyFloridaRX.com - Developed by the Florida Attorney General and the Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA), the Florida Prescription Drug Price website provides pricing information for the 50 most commonly used prescription drugs in Florida.

Floridacomparecare.gov - This website includes performance data and information on selected medical conditions and procedures in Florida's short-term acute care hospitals and ambulatory (outpatient) surgery centers.

HealthCost - This site enables residents of New Hampshire to obtain a cost estimate of the amount that a hospital, surgery center, physician, or other health care professional receives for its services.

Hospital Consumer Assist - The Arkansas Hospital Association launched this site to provides consumers with the average price Arkansas hospitals charges Medicare for 25 types of inpatient stays. It also allows patients to consider the cost of similar care. In addition, users can compare hospitals nationally and statewide on 20 measures developed by the Hospital Quality Alliance and listed on CMS' Hospital Compare Web site.

Kyha.com - This website includes information on hospital-specific and includes for each Refined Diagnosis Related Group, the number of cases each hospital treated for the DRG, the median length of stay, and median charges by four severity of illness levels, and the median age of patients.

Louisiana Hospital Inform - The Louisiana Hospital Association has launched a site to provide patients with information about hospital procedures, prices and quality in all parishes of the state.

Maryland Drug Prices- This site allows Marylanders to compare prices of prescription drugs across the state.

Maryland Hospital Pricing Guide - For each acute care hospital in Maryland, the Pricing Guide lists the number of cases, the average charge per case, and the average charge per day for 15 of the most common diagnoses.

Michigan Rx Price Finder - This site allows Michiganders to compare prices of prescription drugs across the state.

Minnesota RxConnect - This site allows Minnesotans to compare prices of prescription drugs across the state.

Minnesota Hospital Quality Report - This site gives you a snapshot of hospitals’ performance in four key areas: heart attack, heart failure, pneumonia and surgical care.

Minnesota Hospital Price Check - The Minnesota Hospital Association launched a Web site to provide patients with the costs of the 50 most common inpatient procedures and the 25 most common outpatient procedures at specific hospitals.

Missouri Rx Price Compare – This online system allows Missourians to interactively search and display pharmacy prices of commonly used prescription medications. The site also displays generic alternatives for many brand name medications.

New Jersey Prescription Drug Price Registry - This site allows consumers to compare the retail prices charged by many pharmacies for the 150 most-frequently prescribed prescription drugs.

New York Drug Prices - This site allows New Yorkers to compare prices of prescription drugs across the state.

New York City Health - The Web site allows the public to see the overall death rate, the rate of deaths after heart attacks, preventable bloodstream infections and pneumonia cases, among other measures, at the 11 hospitals.

North Carolina Hospital Quality - This site helps patients, family, and friends compare the quality and safety of care in North Carolina hospitals.

Oregon.gov - The state of Oregon has launched a web site where consumers can find out the average hospital payments for 82 common medical procedures and conditions. The Compare Hospital Costs site, which launched last week, shows what the nine largest private health insurance carriers paid statewide for these treatments to acute-care facilities in 2005. The data do not include Medicare or Medicaid claims. While many other states provide information on hospitals' billed charges, only two other states—New Hampshire and Pennsylvania—report the actual charges that most insurers pay.

State Snapshots - The State Snapshots provide state-specific health care quality information including strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities for improvement. The goal is to help state officials and their public- and private-sector partners better understand health care quality and disparities in their state. It allows users to choose their state, explore, and compare the quality of their State's health care against national or best performing States. It provides summaries by types of care, settings of care, specific conditions, and overall health care quality.

Tennessee Hospital Inform - This site lists the average prices for most common procedures using hospitals' annual reports to the state from October 2003 through September 2004.

Texas Health Care Information Collection Center for Health Statistics – Sponsored by the Texas Health Care Information Council, this DHS resource provides free data on hospitals and HMOs.

Qualitycheck.org – Sponsored by the not-for-profit Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO), Quality Check is a source of accreditation and comparison information that individuals may access free of charge.

Vermont Prescription Drug Price Finder - This site allows Vermonters to compare prices of prescription drugs across the state.

Virginia Health Information - VHI has information and data on Virginia hospitals, health insurance, nursing facilities, physicians, retirement centers and other health care providers. Learn about care options, compare services and choose providers. VHI also licenses databases and creates special reports for employers, researchers, consultants, and health care providers. Lastly, VHI reports group cardiac care into three Cardiac Care Service Lines. These groups include medical care for heart disease and heart surgery.

Private Sector

BidRx.com -This is an auction website where patients can shop for the best price for prescription medication. After receiving a prescription from a physician, patients enter the drug name, strength, dosage and other details online. The Web site then creates an auction in which pharmacies across the country can bid to fill the prescription.

Billchek.com - BillChek is a service that identifies medical billing errors and potential medical overcharges. Within one business day, consumers can receive a detailed explanation of their medical bills and learn how to determine a reasonable payment amount.

Clarian Health Partners - On this new Clarian Health Partners Web site, people can compare quality measures comparing Clarian with national averages for a range of medical procedures. (Indianapolis area)

ehealthinsurance.com - This site allows individuals and small businesses compare health insurance plans.

gahospitalpricecheck.com - Georgia Hospital Association launched a Web site that allows patients to check out the cost and quality of common medical procedures at the state's 141 acute care hospitals.

Healthia - This website allows small businesses and individuals to compare health insurance plans.

Healthgrades – Sponsored by HealthGrades Inc., a healthcare quality ratings company, this site provides free access to hospital ratings; comprehensive hospital reports are available for a nominal fee.

Leapfroggroup -This site, sponsored by the Leapfrog Group (a coalition of companies and organizations that buy healthcare) provides free ratings of hospital quality in 31 metropolitan areas.

Mhqp - The Massachusetts Health Quality Partners provides information to help physicians improve the quality of care they provide their patients and help consumers take an active role in making informed decisions about their healthcare.

MyMedicalcontrol - My Medical Control will evaluate any consumer's medical bill, free-of-charge. The consumer's medical claim or bill is compared against a medical claim reimbursement database to ensure the consumer is being "charged" what the provider generally "accepts" for the same or similar services. If there is a discrepancy between the "charged" amount and the generally "accepted" amount, a representative will intervene with the medical provider on behalf of the consumer and attempt to settle the bill for the more "reasonable" amount.

Oklahoma Nursing Homes -This Web site was designed to as a tool that allows the Oklahoma Health Care Authority and the Oklahoma Department of Health to work with nursing homes to provide quality long-term care facilities for Oklahomans. The nursing home ranking system uses multiple measures to score each nursing home on a level of one (lowest) through five (highest). The nursing home ratings are based on 10 separate “Rating Factors.”

PatientINFORM - This site provides links to selected journal articles provided free of charge by organizations such as the American Cancer Society, the American Diabetes Association, the American Heart Association, the National Organization for Rare Disorders, and The ALS Association. According to Congressional Quarterly, “Bush administration officials and Capitol Hill lawmakers said the site could be a valuable resource for consumers.” (CQ, 2/22/06)

PharmacyChecker.com – PharmacyChecker.com (LLC) is a website that collects, evaluates and reports credentials, prices, and customer feedback regarding pharmacies that operate online and through mail-order and fax.

Pillbot.com -This site allows consumers to compare the prices of hundreds of different prescriptions.

Revolutionhealth - This site offers best-of-breed health information as well as more than 125 online tools aimed at helping individuals take control of their well-being. Revolution Health has partnered with more than 50 companies and teamed with a number of leading health nonprofits and experts to make its innovative approach to health a reality.

Vimo.com - This web site allows businesses and consumers to research, rate and purchase health insurance plans and Health Savings Accounts (HSAs), and choose doctors from across the country.

Wisconsin PricePoint - The Wisconsin Hospital Association has introduced a system called PricePoint which provides the number of procedures performed, the average cost, the average number of days of stay in the hospital for the procedure, and the median age for the procedure. The site compares this information at a specific hospital to all other hospitals in the area as well as statewide.