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Monday, April 23, 2007

Not law but important - Yet more on negotiating medical bills [Updated]

"Clarian Health has price guide for patients" is the headline to a story that appeared last Friday on the front page of the Indianapolis Star. Daniel Lee reports:

Clarian Health Partners has launched a Web site -- clarian.org/priceguide -- that it says provides patients with pricing and other information on 75 medical procedures and services, from a simple cholesterol test to a heart transplant.

The site, a first for a major Indianapolis hospital system, tells you what you can expect to pay if you have traditional insurance, Medicare or Medicaid.

The new Web site puts Clarian at the forefront of a push for greater disclosure of prices at a time when many consumers are being asked to pay more of their medical costs through higher premiums or deductibles.

The day when consumers can comparison-shop for medical services, however, may be a long way off because other hospitals do not offer similar information, and the prices quoted by Clarian are only broad ranges and averages.

In one example, a Clarian hospital would charge about $343 for a bone-density test, recommended for many women to check for osteoporosis, according to the site.

A patient with commercial insurance, such as Anthem or Aetna, would pay an average of $80 but could pay as much as $202. A person covered by Medicare would pay $14, while a Medicaid patient would pay nothing.

Unfortunately, an annoying audio comes on whenever you log on to the site.

The ILB has posted a number of earlier entries on negotiating medical costs. Here is a list. Here is a story from the April 4th Gary Post-Tribune headed "Area hospitals don't make it easy to shop for health care." See also this ILB entry from March 14th.

[Updated at 12:30 pm] Well, I take it back. I just wasted 20 minutes on the new Clarian site. I still have not a clue as to how you find out the prices of various procedures, so I can't recommend it. I did see a lot of Clarian promotional material.

[Updated 4/30/07] The Star has a story today headlined "Surfing for health care: Need surgery? Or an MRI? Anthem's Web site lets you check area hospitals for the right price." A quote:

The health insurer, part of Indianapolis-based WellPoint, today unveiled an Internet tool, available at Anthem.com, that allows members to search what dozens of medical procedures cost at specific hospitals across Central Indiana. * * *

This month, Clarian Health introduced its own pricing site, clarian.org/priceguide. That site provides estimated out-of- pocket expenses and total expenses for dozens of procedures at Clarian hospitals.

Other insurers, such as UnitedHealth, also have online tools to estimate health-care costs.

Anthem's site offers the benefit of side-by-side cost comparisons for dozens of providers.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on April 23, 2007 08:22 AM
Posted to General News