Ohio hospital pays patients for bills from competing facilities

Alliance Community Hospital wants to see what other area facilities charge and what insurers reimburse, then post that information online.

By Emily Berry, AMNews staff. May 19, 2008.

An Ohio hospital is soliciting help from its patients in putting together a comparison shopping tool showing not just what competing hospitals charge, but also what insurers are paying them for care.

In exchange for submitting a copy of a bill from a competing hospital and the corresponding explanation of benefits form from certain insurers, Alliance Community Hospital will pay patients $100.

"We don't want any personal information -- only the costs of a medical procedure," a hospital ad announcing the program said. The ad said the hospital plans to post compiled prices and reimbursements on its Web site.

The offer of cash for EOB forms is the latest effort toward pricing and quality transparency at the Alliance, Ohio hospital.

A state law that took effect in November 2006 requires Ohio hospitals to post prices for common procedures on their Web sites and make hard copies of price lists available to patients, but Alliance CEO Stan Jonas wants to take things a step further.

"It's our belief that educating the public on how to comparison shop for health care services, as they do for other major life investments (i.e. cars, homes) will benefit them by helping to clarify their best choices for quality and value," Jonas wrote in an e-mail to AMNews.

"In our own interest, we hope that a majority of the consumers who do this research will ultimately wind up at our front door."

Because health plans negotiate discounts and keep reimbursements largely confidential, there is still an element of mystery to health care prices, said Ohio State Medical Assn. spokeswoman Lisa Hackley.