BlueCross BlueShield of North Carolina, the state's largest health insurer, has come out with an online cost tool that essentially exposes price differences for the same procedure among North Carolina healthcare providers, according to a News Observer report.
The online cost tool, bcbsnc.com/healthcarecost, allows users to type in a treatment or service, as well as a location. It then provides various cost comparisons.
Although Susan Weaver, Blue Cross' chief medical officer, hails the tool as a "key component of solving the healthcare cost problem," several healthcare advocates contend the site will mislead and confuse users because, they said, it doesn't provide clarity as far as the meaning of the numbers, among other things, according to the report.
The report notes that the insurer made the announcement about the online cost tool shortly after the state's Department of Health and Human Services began posting cost data that hospitals submitted, per the North Carolina Health Care Cost Reduction and Transparency Act.
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