A sampling of third-party, semi-private websites offering healthcare cost comparison data.
As consumers increasingly take on more financial responsibility for their healthcare, they are seeking ways to "comparison shop" for healthcare services. There have been efforts by the government to release quality data on providers, but cost data is much less easy to locate. While several state governments have required public availability of healthcare prices (and some hospitals have proactively made this information available), the prices generally reflect chargemaster pricing, which rarely reflects the true (read: negotiated) price payers pay, or the portion consumers owe after cost-sharing.
Instead, for accurate pricing information, consumers must obtain information from their employers and/or insurers directly. As a result, many employers and payers use third-party vendors to aggregate pricing data and make it available to enrollees. Here are seven of the most widely-used third-party websites reporting healthcare costs, according to a new Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality Technical Brief, "Public Reporting of Cost Measures in Health."
1. Castlight Health — Outpatient data — Employer subscription model
2. HealthSparq — Inpatient, outpatient, ER, urgent care data — Employer or health plan subscription model
3. Truven Health Analytics — Inpatient, outpatient — Employer or health plan subscription model
4. Change Healthcare — Data types unknown — Employer or health plan subscription model
5. ClearCost Health — Data types unknown — Employer, health plan or union subscription model
6. Compass — Outpatient — Employer, individual or family subscription model