The Agency for Health Care Administration (Agency) today launched FloridaHealthPriceFinder, a new health care transparency tool for consumers. The new website allows consumers and caregivers to look up the average amounts paid by insurance plans for a specific service, giving them a better estimate of what their total out-of-pocket expenses will be. The average payments are based on billions of lines of claims data from three Florida health plans, and claims data from additional plans will be added in early 2018. Further updates to the website will be available in the upcoming months.
Agency Secretary Justin Senior said, “Florida continues to lead the way in providing health care transparency for our residents. Floridians have already had the ability to use FloridaHealthFinder to access health plan report cards, locate the best facilities for their families, and access educational resources. FloridaHealthPriceFinder takes these resources a step further, and gives consumers a more realistic cost estimate than was previously available. I look forward to continued innovations in health care transparency as we pursue our mission of Better Health Care for All Floridians.”
The website lists the services as “care bundles” in order to factor in all aspects that account for the final price. For example, the care bundle for a knee replacement includes consultation, surgery, physical therapy and a follow-up visit. Since 2007, Floridians have been able to use FloridaHealthFinder.gov to look at undiscounted hospital charges, but this is rarely the amount that individuals or insurance companies are expected to pay. This tool can be used in conjunction with contacting your health insurance company to find out-of-pocket costs.
FloridaHealthFinder and FloridaHealthPriceFinder will operate together to continue to provide Floridians with transparent health care resources. To compare health care facilities in Florida please click here. All of the new resources provider by FloridaHealthPriceFinder can be found by visiting pricing.floridahealthfinder.gov.
