In response to a Milwaukee employers’ coalition fed up with high healthcare costs--the Milwaukee area has the country’s fifth highest hospital costs--Humana created a health plan for the coalition’s 44,000 employees that provides prices for 30 inpatient procedures, six outpatient procedures, and various tests performed at area hospitals. According to an article in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, consumers can compare prices at participating hospitals for procedures such as hip replacement, which ranges from $20,600 to $41,800, or colonoscopy, which has a range of $940 to $3,530. Humana’s web site also provides information on hospital quality measures, such as complication rates, mortality, and number of procedures performed by each hospital.
WebMD Health is also inking deals with insurers and employers to act as a private-access portal to give consumers information about prices and quality at hospitals and physicians’ offices and to help them track their medical records. A New York Times article reports that WebMD has signed contracts with Aetna, Cigna, Wellpoint, and employers such as Bank of America, Cisco Systems, Dell Computer, I.B.M, Pfizer, Shell Oil, and the state of North Carolina.
