Health foundation says consumers need price transparency; Medicaid health officer says some commercial interests want it

Kentucky Health News

The Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky says a major step needed to improve the health of Kentuckians is transparency of their health-care cost and quality.

"Consumers can (then) compare apples to apples," Susan Zepeda, the Foundation's president and CEO, told Greg Stotelmyer of Public News Service. "What is a particular procedure going to cost if I have it at this hospital versus that outpatient surgery center? What are my co-pays going to be or my deductibles under my insurance plan?"

The foundation recently recommended that Kentucky develop and establish an all-payer claims database, or APCD, for consumers and stakeholders as a tool for transparency. John Langefeld, chief medical officer of the state's Department of Medicaid Services, told Stotelmyer that "support for the idea is growing, including from many on the commercial side of health care."

But this type of transparency is not likely to happen without a law to require it, which Kentucky does not have, Stotelmyer reports.

Massachusetts is the only state that requires the type of health-care transparency the foundation is talking about. And while it is not a perfect system, with reported prices not reflecting all of the involved charges, frequent price changes and weak information about the quality of care, it is still "unlike anything else in the country," Martha Bebinger reports for Kaiser Health News.

Oregon could possibly become the second state to require health-care transparency. Two bills for it are pending in the current legislative session. One that would require hospitals to reveal their median prices for common inpatient and outpatient procedures, "is expected to get very little opposition as it makes its way through the legislative session," Chris Willis reports for KGW in Portland.

But physician and system theorist Deane Waldman argues in the Huffington Post that price transparency won't work. She says that transparency can't reflect the real cost of health-care, doesn't reflect health outcomes or quality of care, and when it does reflect outcomes, it only reflects the average outcome and not individual probabilities. She also says that because the current health-care in the U.S. is not a free market, consumers have no reason to economize.

The Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky disagrees. "Sunshine on pricing will make sure that we're all playing by the same rules," Zepeda told Stotelmyer. Kentucky has the ability to gather the data, but it still needs "the political will" to do so, she said.

Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky wants a claims database to increase transparency about health-care cost and quality in Ky.

Kentucky has experienced rapid changes in health care since the implementation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, and the next step is to implement a program that will provide more transparency about the cost and quality of health care so consumers can make informed, value-based health decisions, says a news release from the Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky.

A recent Kentucky Health Issues poll found that most Kentuckians think they can find out what doctors charge for treatments and procedures if they need this information. They seem to believe that transparency already exists, but this is often not the case.

The foundation recommends that Kentucky develop and establish an all-payer claims database, or APCD, for consumers and stakeholders as a tool to address this issue of price transparency.

"Clear, factual information about the cost and quality of health care is necessary for consumers to select value-driven care and for consumers and providers to be involved and accountable in their decision about their health and health care services," says the release.

The APCD Council defines APCDs as “large-scale databases that systematically collect health-care claims data from a variety of payer sources which include claims from most health-care providers," says the news release. The information includes patient demographics, provider codes, and clinical, financial and utilization data. This information is then made available to the public.

The foundation said it analyzed national and state expert presentations, reviewed studies and held a meeting in October with more than 60 Kentucky leaders in government, business, policy and health care to discuss the issue.

Participants discussed barriers, feasibility, solutions and other factors in implementing price transparency in Kentucky from the perspectives of the consumer, provider, policymaker and researchers. Here are some of their collective findings, according to the release:

• Current cost and health service information are difficult to understand. 
• Price and quality data need to be useful to the consumer through simple, useful tools, currently it is not. 
• The state must be involved in implementing an APCD by passing laws to require the collection and sharing of data and requiring the data to be reported publicly. 
• An effective APCD would allow estimates and cost comparisons between providers; would include expected out-of-pocket costs and quality measures that can be compared across providers; would have the ability to see spending patterns over time for all enrolled under one policy; would offer individual level data; and would offer health care value-based cost saving tips.
• There is a significant variation in health-care pricing, and physicians may need an incentive to consider cost when making decisions for patients.

Colorado was one of the first states to establish price transparency legislation, data collection and reporting on a state-wide level. Representatives from that state's APCD said it was initially funded by foundations, but will use fees to sustain itself going forward.

New rule will improve reporting of antibiotic-resistant infections in health-care facilities, which are getting worse in Kentucky

By Melissa Patrick
Kentucky Health News

FRANKFORT, Ky. — Kentucky will have a new weapon, in the form of data, to fight infections acquired in hospitals and other health-care facilities, with legislative approval of a regulation that changes the way antibiotic-resistant infections such as MRSA and C. difficile are reported.

Health Watch USA chart, Centers for Disease Control data

The new rule comes at a time when Kentucky has the third highest rate of MRSA bloodstream infections in the nation, according to the National Healthcare Safety Network. The state was ranked fourth last year.

Kentucky hospitals are 27 percent worse for MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) and 21 percent worse for catheter-associated urinary tract infections than they were two years ago, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control's National and State Health-care Associated Infection Progress report.

The legislature's Administrative Regulation Review Subcommittee approved the regulation, which has been in the works since 2008, at its Jan. 13 meeting. In the meantime, hospitals have succeeded in changing the term "hospital-acquired infections" to "healthcare-associated infections" to indicate that not all such infections occur in hospitals.

"The emergence of these dangerous organisms is really a problem of our entire heath care system and it can't be fixed by any single facility or facility type," Kevin Kavanagh of Somerset, chairman of Health Watch USA, a non-profit organization that promotes health care transparency and patient advocacy, told the committee. For his testimony, click here.

The regulation redefines HAIs and HAI outbreaks for infections, and requires simultaneous data reporting to the CDC and the state Department for Public Health. The CDC already has the data, but has "no authority" to act on it, while the state health department has the authority but not the data, Kavanagh wrote in an opinion piece for the Lexington Herald-Leader. "It is imperative that we know what is happening and where, so effective action can take place."

He told the committee, "Data for action is critical. It is the first step to confront these dangerous organisms."

The regulation also will require electronic reporting via the Kentucky Health Information Exchange beginning 2016. It now goes to Gov. Steve Beshear for final approval, which is expected.

Rep. Tom Burch, D-Louisville, chair of the House Health and Welfare Committee, told the joint House-Senate regulations committee that he had worked on the regulation for many years and that the Kentucky Hospital Association supported it. It had lobbied against such regulations. "There is nobody against it right now," Burch said.

However, Sen. Alice Forgy Kerr, R-Lexington, said "This regulation seems to have caused a lot of indigestion for a lot of people," and asked for a "statement of confirmation" from someone representing a group that might have opposed it in the past.

The hospital association's vice president of government relations, Sarah Nicholson, was at the meeting but didn't speak. Dana Stephens, director of infection prevention and control at St. Joseph East Hospital and St. Joseph Jessamine, told the committee, "I have had the great pleasure and honor of working with this multidisciplinary team for the past many years to really develop legislation and regulatory language that will provide information that will improve the health of those citizens we serve."

Kerr commended the groups on reaching a compromise, but the elements of the compromise were unclear. Nicholson declined to comment after the meeting.

Kavanagh said afterward that the regulation is needed to reverse the apparent increase in hospital infections, based on the CDC data from 38 of the state's 93 hospitals. "We are going in the wrong direction, with Kentucky 27 percent worse than it was two years ago," he noted. "This regulation will help with that."

Centers for Disease Control graphic reports Kentucky data on health-care-associated infections

The regulation is expected to improve the accuracy of Kentucky's HAI data because it requires all health-care facilities to submit reports and more clearly defines HAIs, which Kananagh said will help with under-reporting of infections.

New regulations often raise questions about the cost of enforcing them. Kavanagh told the committee that the CDC had told him that it would be allocating "a lot of federal money" to state health departments through grants to confront infectious disease issues, a result of the lessons learned from Ebola. Better HAI data will support Kentucky's need for these grants, he said.

"So, I do believe the state health department, along with other entities, will have access to funds to implement this regulation change,” he said.