The Oregon Association of Hospitals and Health Systems announced that every Oregon hospital can provide a cost estimate for hospital services for a scheduled procedure within three business days. This voluntary policy helps uninsured or out-of-network patients to understand their potential costs for services provided at the hospital.
Most insured patients, however, will find more useful information on costs by contacting their insurer, who can provide specific estimates based on their particular plan.
To facilitate access to this information, OAHHS also announced that the OregonHospitalGuide.org website now features a “Cost Estimates” section for each hospital in the state. This new section provides comprehensive information for consumers to contact hospital cost estimate and billing departments. It also links directly to each hospital’s financial assistance policy, which can be helpful for people who need help paying their bill.
“Patients, whether they are insured, out of their health plan’s network or lack insurance all together, should be able to get a good faith estimate directly from their hospital for the cost of a procedure ahead of time. And, when coupled with the corresponding commitment of Oregon’s health plans to provide costs estimates for the vast majority of our state’s residents who are now insured, every Oregonian, whether insured, uninsured or out-of network can get the financial information they need to make better healthcare decisions for themselves and their families,” said Andy Davidson, OAHHS President and CEO. “We are very proud of this pro-consumer commitment by Oregon hospitals.”
“We commend OAHHS and its member hospitals for their accomplishments and for their commitment to improving price transparency,” said Healthcare Financial Management Association President and CEO Joseph J. Fifer, FHFMA, CPA. “Oregon is among the first hospital associations in the nation to adopt the recommendations in the HFMA Price Transparency Task Force Report, which reflect the industry consensus on price and quality transparency.”
This pro-consumer initiative is part of a larger transparency effort designed and led by OAHHS and complements the comparable hospital quality data already available on OregonHospitalGuide.org website. In addition to this new information, the website, which launched in March of 2015, also provides searchable, comparable hospital financial and utilization data for every hospital in the state, as well as quality of care data — all of which patients can use to learn about their local community hospital.
Key data features on OregonHospitalGuide.org:
— Contact information and direct links to hospital billing and financial assistance policies
— Searchable quality of care data reported to the federal government
— Key indicators in graph form for individual hospitals including operating margins, payer mix, and uncompensated care in percentage and dollars
— Key indicators for comparing one or more hospitals including:
— Average length of stay, average daily census, occupancy rate, surgery mix, and FTEs per adjusted occupied bed
— Charity care as a percentage of total charges, total uncompensated care as a percentage of total charges, collected charges as a percent of total charges, operating margin, and total margin
At the time of launching the site, OAHHS reminded patients that despite all the comparisons and research that this site enables, the best way to make informed health care decisions was still in consultation with their medical professional team.
To learn more, visit OregonHospitalGuide.org.
Philip Schmidt
Associate Vice President of Public Affairs
503-479-6020
pschmidt@oahhs.org
