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New initiatives promote healthcare transparency

Healthcare Strategist Trend Watch, March 24, 2006

Several new transparency initiatives will soon give consumers better access to pricing and quality data for hospitals nationwide.

Starting March 27, consumers will be able to get pricing information for approximately 55 procedures at hospitals across the country. New reports by the online healthcare ratings organization HealthGrades, based in Golden, CO, will allow consumers to comparison shop for procedures and hospitals by cost and quality ratings.

And the federal government will soon begin publicly disclosing the prices that federal health programs such as Medicare pay hospitals and doctors for medical procedures. It will later publish broader healthcare cost information specific to several cities, representatives from the Department of Health and Human Services said.

Also in March, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services launched a Web site for that state officials can use to measure healthcare quality. The new tool provides quick and easy access to state-by-state data.

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