Secretary Senior Announces Contract Awarded to HCCI for Health Care Transparency Initiative

The Agency for Health Care Administration (Agency) announced today the selection of the Health Care Cost Institute (HCCI) as the vendor partner that will create an online health care transparency tool for Florida where consumers can find and compare the price of common health care services in their area.
Agency Secretary Justin M. Senior said, “Our Agency continues to place an emphasis on health care transparency for Florida’s consumers, and we are committed to ensuring that all Floridians have access to high quality health care. This tool is a huge step forward in providing consumers with as much information about pricing and quality as possible, allowing Floridians to make more informed health care decisions.”
The tool will calculate prices based on data from actual insurance claims that have been paid to Florida health care providers, and will help consumers estimate their out of pocket costs before they receive a health care service. The tool will allow visitors to the Agency’s existing health care information website, FloridaHealthFinder.gov, to compare health care providers based on both price and quality so they can make more informed decisions when seeking health care services.
HCCI was selected to create the tool for Florida when the new health care transparency law, F.S 408.05(3)(c), became effective on July 1, 2016. Under this contract, HCCI will add claims from insurance plans that are participating in Florida’s Statewide Medicaid Managed Care program and the Florida state employee group health insurance program. The vendor will create a dedicated website for Florida that will interface with FloridaHealthFinder.gov, allowing visitors to view prices, quality, regulatory and a wealth of other information on Florida licensed health care providers all in one place.
HCCI Executive Director and President David Newman said “HCCI is pleased to be working with the State of Florida on the health care transparency initiative. The Florida initiative is the largest state effort in the country to promote price and quality transparency and is part of the state’s larger efforts to reform and improve the care available to Floridians.”
The online tool will provide pricing estimates on up to 300 different “bundles” of health care services. Bundles are designed to help consumers understand the complete cost of their care, even if their particular condition requires care from multiple providers.