New Hampshire`s Health Cost Comparison Website Scores an `A`

July 10--New Hampshire has become a model for the nation when it comes to helping consumers compare prices for healthcare services.

The state's cost-comparison website, NHHealthCost.org, produced by the Insurance Department in cooperation with the University of New Hampshire, was recently cited by the federal government as an example for other states to follow as they apply for grants to launch similar programs.

And on Wednesday, the state earned the only "A" in a national report card on access to healthcare prices, issued by two nonprofit organizations that focus on healthcare reform.

Colorado and Maine were graded with a "B," while Vermont and Virginia each got a "C." The rest of the states were rated with an "F" for failing to provide consumers with easily accessible cost-comparison data.

The 50-state report card, developed by the Catalyst for Payment Reform and Health Care Incentives Institute, calls NHHealthCost "a prime example of a price transparency website built with consumers in mind."

"We commend New Hampshire for the effort it has put into the site and urge other states to use NHHealthCost as a model when developing price information for their residents," the report states.

NH HealthCost, which has been around in one form or another since 2007, uses paid claims data collected from insurance companies to show patients estimated prices for various procedures.

New Hampshire residents can use the site to see how costs vary among hospitals and outpatient facilities on more than two dozen services, including knee surgeries, colonoscopies, MRIs, CT scans, ultrasounds and x-rays.

In 2010, the Insurance Department was awarded the Innovation in Data Dissemination Award for the site by the National Association of Health Data Organizations.

Improvements coming

The site went dark in early 2014 for a few months because of problems with a third-party vendor hired to capture raw claims data from health insurers. It came back up later in the year with a new look and deeper database.

"The look and feel of the website have changed," said Tyler Brannen, an Insurance Department health policy analyst who has coordinated the project since 2006, working with the UNH Web and Mobile Development Group.

"We now have a few more procedures on there, and we are working constantly to add providers and procedures," he said.

The work is funded by a two-year, $1 million grant from the federal Department of Health and Human Services, which cited New Hampshire in announcing the grant program nationwide. The Affordable Care Act makes $250 million available over five years to help states enhance pricing transparency.

The Insurance Department plans to launch a redesign in the fall, with dozens more procedures, including rates for laboratory services, dental care and prescription drugs.

Eve Oyer, president of benefits management at Tandem Care in Manchester, said she has noticed the improvements in the state website. Tandem has built its own database of health-care costs in New Hampshire, and has many employers as clients, including the Union Leader Corp.

"It does look much nicer than it used to," she said. "They have done a good job at making it user-friendly."

New phenomenon

Cost-comparison is a fairly new phenomenon in healthcare, a field in which consumers have historically not done much price shopping.

"That's largely because there hasn't been any transparency," said Oyer. "When you go to buy a television, there's all sorts of consumer information you can access about the quality of the TV you are looking at, the technical specifications, and you can easily compare to get the best value, but that information has not been readily available to health-care consumers."

With prices of a colonoscopy, for example, ranging from $2,100 at Concord Endoscopy Surgery Center to $6,600 at Monadnock Community Hospital, it's easy to see why that information is important.

For the most part, there is no correlation between cost and quality when it comes to healthcare, said Oyer, so price-shopping doesn't necessarily mean compromising on care."For the types of services that are on the NHHealthCost site, say radiology, there really is no variation in quality to speak of," said Oyer. "Everyone has the same technology. In the case of MRIs, it's literally the same piece of equipment."

Copyright 2015 - The New Hampshire Union Leader, Manchester