Health insurer Priority Health has announced it has contracted with Healthcare Blue Book to publish cost and quality information for more than 300 procedures by facility and physician for its insurance members in Michigan.
The insurance company becomes the first in Michigan to offer the service and comes as employers and insurers are seeking ways to provide more cost and quality information to businesses and individual members as a means of curbing escalating healthcare costs.
The move by Priority is especially valuable to its members who are enrolled in high-deductible health plans (HDHPs) where members pay more out-of-pocket costs for the care they receive in exchange for lower insurance premiums. According to Priority Health President and CEO Michael P. Freed, nearly half of the insurer's members in Michigan are enrolled in HDHPs.
"When individuals pay more out of their own pockets, they become more engaged in their health care decision making," said Freed in a prepared statement. "We feel it's our role to improve the health and lives of our members by providing the information they need to make important health care decisions."
The move to publish the comparative cost and quality information comes as employers are seeking ways to keep healthcare costs in check, and as many do this, by turning to offering defined contribution and HDHP options for their employees.
According to Priority Healthcare, its partnership with Healthcare Blue Book will allow members to look up information on any of the 300 procedures and receive price range information on the procedures' provider and facility price rankings, as well as quality metrics.
The new tool, set to roll out in summer, will provide regional information on procedures, and using data it collects on an ongoing basis, will be able to publish a "fair price" for each procedure.
As an example, the cost of a knee arthroscopy may range from $1,751 to $6,087 between facilities according to the data collected by Healthcare Blue Book. In this case, it has determined the fair price for the procedure to be $2,110. With this information, Priority Health will provide its members with a color-coded, stratified list of costs for the procedure by facility. Green indicates a cost at or below fair price; yellow, slightly higher than fair price; and red the most expensive. Members can drill down further into each entry to discover quality information and patient reviews.
"Most consumers spend more time shopping for a new TV than for their health care," said Jeffrey Rice, MD, CEO of Healthcare Blue Book in a statement. "With our tool, they can understand the large differences in health care costs and compare by procedure, facility and physician to make good choices for themselves and their families, similar to the type of online support they are accustomed to when evaluating other services."
According to John Fox, MD, associate vice president of medical affairs at Priority Health, working to publish this information is intended to empower its members. "It made sense for us to partner with Healthcare Blue Book, a trusted leader that works directly with employers, to take the next step in health care transparency and enhance the information we make available," said Fox in a press release.
[See also: Consumer-directed health plans now second most popular employer-sponsored plan]