CMS Hopes Medicare Cost Comparison Will Reduce Healthcare Debt

Healthcare traditionally has been a service Americans buy without knowing beforehand how much it will cost. That’s about to change now that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services began posting what it paid for some inpatient hospital procedures for Medicare patients on its Hospital Compare consumer website www.hospitalcompare.hhs.gov.

CMS began adding the information to the website in March. Users can search by city, zip code or county to learn what Medicare paid hospitals in that area for treatment for specific medical conditions such as diabetes or a heart attack and surgical procedures for heart and blood vessels. Users also can search the website for information on hospital processes and care measures, patient experiences, and the number of procedures or patients a hospital treated for some medical conditions or surgical procedures.

Peter Ashkenaz, a spokesperson for CMS, said the pricing information represents only the amount Medicare paid to hospitals. It does not include additional payments from a supplemental insurance plan or out-of-pocket costs to the patient, he said.

“It’s the beginning steps of transparency,” Ashkenaz said. “If nothing else, what this should do is provide another point that consumers can use to ask questions.”

Website visitors should find the pricing and quality information interesting, given that more Americans are paying a greater share of their health care costs through higher premiums, co-pays and deductibles. That trend, say industry experts, is leaving more hospitals and health care providers with unpaid medical bills and bad debt that is reaching record levels.

More than 2,500 hospitals around the country provided information for the website. According to CMS, the data was gathered from a random sample of discharged patients who were treated between October 2006 and June 2007.

CMS said it hopes consumers will use the information to make decisions about the quality and value of the health care they are receiving from their local providers and to support the long term viability of Medicare. “A better understanding of the cost of care leads to more informed decision making, one more way beneficiaries can help improve their health and support the longer term financial health of Medicare,” CMS said in a press release.

Last week, the Board of Trustees for Medicare and Social Security warned Congress that the Medicare Hospital Trust Fund is in jeopardy of becoming insolvent by 2019 ("Death and Taxes- Politicians Ignoring Medicare Crisis," March 31), because non-dedicated federal funds soon will account for more than 45 percent of Medicare expenditures.