The information exchange proposal was made by the Hospital Value Initiative, a coalition made up of the following group purchasers: the Pacific Business Group on Health, the California Public Employees’ Retirement System and the California Health Care Coalition.
The Justice Department decision was outlined in a business review letter from Christine Varney, assistant attorney general in charge of the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division, to the group’s legal counsel.
“The Hospital Value Initiative will likely provide greater information about the relative costs and utilization rates of hospitals in California and lead payers and employers to make more informed decisions when purchasing hospital services,” Ms. Varney said in the release.
In coming to its conclusion, the Justice Department decided that the proposal would not produce anticompetitive effects because the data provided on the exchange would be at least 10 months old and the program would not disclose disaggregated data or hospitals’ actual service fees, according to the release. The program might, however, benefit consumers by offering greater transparency about California hospitals’ relative costs and resource efficiency.
Read the Justice Department news release on the California cost information exchange program.
