Major health insurers to provide consumers with access to healthcare prices

On May 14th, the Health Care Cost Institute (“HCCI”) announced that it will work with three large health insurance companies, UnitedHealthcare, Humana, and Aetna, to provide an online tool that consumers will be able to utilize to obtain information about the price of healthcare services.

HCCI, a non-profit, will create and maintain the online tool, which will be available starting in early 2015.  The tool will offer reference prices for certain healthcare services in consumers’ communities.

HCCI will collect and aggregate pricing data from UnitedHealthcare, Humana, and Aetna and publish the information through the online tool.

HCCI hopes to add data from the Medicare and Medicaid programs at a later time as well.  It is expected that the cost data will be supplemented with quality and other information in order to provide consumers with transparent and comprehensive tool regarding the price of quality of healthcare services.

For more information, click here.