BusinessReport.com

Hospitals may not always have been crazy about sharing quality and cost information with the whole world, but you’ve got to change with the times.

And the times are calling for hospitals, medical groups and clinics to throw back the curtain on information historically hidden from public view—or at least hard to access: data on cost, quality of health care and patient outcomes, among others.

It’s known in the industry as “transparency,” and the phrase means different things to different people. Organizations like the Louisiana Business Group on Health have been harping on the subject for years, arguing that consumers can’t really make informed decisions without sufficient information.

Others point out that health care isn’t just health care. It’s also business, and business doesn’t like to release more than it absolutely has to about its inner workings.

Still, transparency appears to be gaining steam in Louisiana: Gov. Bobby Jindal’s administration has made it a priority, and Department of Health and Hospitals Secretary Alan Levine and Deputy Secretary Sybil Richard have already created a transparency model in Florida. To see the fruits of their labor, and perhaps get a glimpse of what Louisianans might have access to in the near future, check out FloridaHealthFinder.gov.

Transparency legislation has also been filed for this session in the form of the Consumers Right to Know Act. On another front, the Business Group on Health recently rolled out its own 10-point reform plan calling for major steps toward transparency and other big changes—including mandatory health care for those over a certain income bracket.

Not just hospitals, but health plans will be asked to provide data to consumers to make them more informed about how they access health care. Access to data is at the heart of the so-called consumer-driven movement, which aims to decrease health care costs by giving consumers the tools they need to get the most bang for their buck when it comes to health care. How much consumers will actually use those tools remains to be seen, though with consumers shouldering more and more of the premium burden, the ability to shop around seems like a good idea in theory.

But the organization says it’s important for the consumer/patient to be able to make side-by-side comparisons on things like cost and quality among various providers if there’s to be any hope that the “consumer-driven” movement will have an impact.

John Matessino, president of the Louisiana Hospital Association, says it’s wrong to assume hospitals are opposed to transparency, though he concedes a shift in attitude has taken place.

“I think there has always been a hesitancy,” Matessino says. “I don’t care what kind of business you’re in. You want to protect your information from your competition, and I don’t think hospitals were any different. The whole transparency thing is a new wave.”

But hospitals are on board, he says, pointing out that LHA went live in April 2006 with its own transparency Web site: LaHospitalInform.com. Initially, it relied on data reported to Medicare that was already available if you knew where to look. Matessino says the early site was a first step, and that the newest version of the site—just rolled out—goes beyond that.

“It’s not just Medicare data anymore,” Matessino says. “It’s actually our own data. It’s an all-payer database now.”

Site visitors can pull up and compare three hospitals side by side and see new information such as quality data reporting that hospitals have to supply to the federal government and “H-CAP” or patient satisfaction data. To be sure, there’s a ton of information on charge ranges for lots of different medical treatments and procedures.

Hospitals are getting more comfortable with the idea of reporting quality and patient satisfaction data since being required to do so by the Federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. But it has to be more than hospitals baring their souls, Matessino says. Hospitals are willing to do their part, he argues, but health plans should be required to divulge the same level of information—such as data insurers have to report to the Department of Insurance.

“We’ve said all along for the health care consumer to only have hospital data is one small piece of the pie,” Matessino says. “If consumers are going to be armed with data, they need to be armed with complete data.”

Gil Dupré, CEO of the Louisiana Association of Health Plans, says health plans already make tons of cost and quality information available to members and prospective members. He thinks LHA’s argument that health plans should spill their guts is a diversionary tactic in response to a push by health plans to make hospitals and other providers more transparent.

“In our opinion, that claim has strictly been a way to counter our support of the release of provider information,” Dupré says. “We look at it as sort of a bogus point, just to avoid doing the reporting themselves.”

That said, Dupré agrees it’s only fair for health plans to pony up quality and cost data if they’re asking the same thing of hospitals. The regular session will include a call for providers and health plans alike to release to consumers information they’re not used to releasing. Dupré insists LAHP is ready to sit down at the table. While he can’t comment on specifics of the new legislation, since neither Dupré nor the health plans he represent have gotten a look at details, if it’s anything like what Florida has, it’ll probably be OK.

“I can’t really speak to what our positions will be on that specific bill, but we think overall the health plans are going to support this type of legislation,” Dupré says.

Some things should stay private, he says, including contract details between hospitals and insurers. Dupré believes revealing too much would put those contracts in jeopardy.

However, Butch Passman, president and CEO of the Louisiana Business Group on Health, says among the dozen or so outcome indicators widely accepted as measures of quality is reimbursement—how much an insurer reimburses a provider for a given medical expense. Reimbursement agreements with providers aren’t something health plans normally like to make public. Consumers are mainly interested in what comes out of their pocket, Passman says, thus abstract cost and charge information isn’t very useful.

“You have to look at reimbursements,” he says. “The cost is meaningless unless you look at it all together.”