The newly effective federalTransparency in Coverage rule – how is your plan/employer acting to comply with it?
Want a Clue on Health Care Costs in Advance? New Tools Take a Crack at It (1/3/23 Kaiser Health News)
As of Jan. 1, health insurers and employers that offer health plans must provide online calculators for patients to get detailed estimates of what they will owe — taking into account deductibles and copayments — for a range of services and drugs.…
….Insurers must make the cost information available for 500 nonemergency services considered “shoppable,” meaning patients generally have time to consider their options.
,,,,how will it work?
Patients, knowing they need a specific treatment, drug, or medical service, first log on to the cost estimator on a website offered through their insurer or, for some, their employer. Next, they can search for the care they need by billing code, which many patients may not have; or by a general description, like “repair of knee joint,” or “MRI of abdomen.” They can also enter a hospital’s or physician’s name or the dosage amount of a drug for which they are seeking price information.
Not all drugs or services will be available in the first year of the tools’ rollout, but the required 500-item list covers a wide swath of medical services, from acne surgery to X-rays….
How cool would it be if we could crowdsource (is that even still a thing?) a monthly or quarterly index of cost estimator results for the top 10/25/whatevertheagreednumber of those 500 items for plans in which r/healthinsurance community members are enrolled or eligible?
Some kind of digest that would show low/high/average results for the selected # of treatments/Rxs, maybe with breakdowns of results by geography, for example — sort of like GasBuddy for health plans?
Anyway, I think it would be pretty neat. Interested in your thoughts.
submitted by /u/realanceps
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