Massachusetts Healthcare data website

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Healthcare data website launched

Compares cost, quality among Mass. hospitals

By Liz Kowalczyk Globe Staff / December 11, 2008

Massachusetts residents can now search a new website to compare the

cost and quality of care at different hospitals, part of an ambitious

state plan to help control healthcare costs by giving consumers more

information.

The site, www.mass.gov/myhealthcareoptions, gives consumers access to

previously confidential information about how much insurers pay

individual hospitals for surgical procedures such as knee and hip

replacements and for treating illnesses such as pneumonia. It also

allows comparisons of patient satisfaction ratings and patient safety

measures at different hospitals.

The website was required as part of the state's mandatory health

insurance law. More than 442,000 people have enrolled in health

insurance programs since 2006, and Massachusetts now has the smallest

percentage of uninsured adults in the country, but the cost of the

subsidized insurance is rising fast.

" Transparency is vitally important in both controlling costs and

improving quality in the healthcare industry, " Dr. JudyAnn Bigby,

secretary of Health and Human Services, said yesterday in a written

statement. " While it remains to be seen how improved access to price

and quality information will impact decision-making, our hope is that

the website will empower consumers to spend healthcare dollars more

efficiently and motivate providers to improve quality and decrease

their costs. "

Bigby is chairwoman of the Massachusetts Health Care Quality and Cost

Council, which oversees the site. The council collected payment data

from all private health insurers in the state.

The information made public yesterday is similar to the data that The

Boston Globe Spotlight Team used for its report last month about how a

handful of hospitals are paid far more than others for doing the same

work, even when there is no evidence that the costlier care produces

healthier patients.

The Globe reported that Brigham and Women's Hospital, Massachusetts

General Hospital, Children's Hospital, Boston, and a few others are,

on average, paid about 15 percent to 60 percent more than their rivals

by insurers such as Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Massachusetts and

Harvard Pilgrim Health Care. The gap is even more striking for

individual procedures, which can be two or three times more expensive

in one hospital than in another.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2008/12/11/healthcare_da\

ta_website_launched/