The Tennessee Hospital Association has launched a web site called Tennessee Hospitals Inform that provides hospital-specific price and quality information. Users select common services and can generate a report that shows a specific hospital’s volume (total cases and average length of stay) and average commercial payer charges. The data reflect discharges between October 1, 2003, and September 30, 2004. Medicare and Medicaid charges are not available, and users are directed to the CMS Hospital Compare web site for quality information.
“This is only the first step, but Tennesseans can rest assured their hospitals are leading the effort to create common terms, definitions and explanations of complex pricing information,” writes Tennessee Hospital Association CEO Craig A. Becker in the Tennessean.
