December 19, 2007 - A new Web site will empower Michigan patients, families, employers and other consumers with more information than has ever been available about the charges, payments and quality of care at Michigan hospitals.
MI Hospital Inform, www.MIHospitalInform.org, is a voluntary consumer service of the Michigan Health and Hospital Association (MHA) and the state’s 146 nonprofit community hospitals.
“The site presents Michigan hospital charges, payments and quality data in unprecedented detail and accessibility in a single location,” said MHA President Spencer Johnson. “Until now, this level of detail about the pricing and quality of care at Michigan hospitals has not been readily available to the public. The business community, regulators, elected officials and consumer advocates regularly seek more transparency in health care data. Michigan hospitals are proud to voluntarily open this window on our charges, payments and quality information for all consumers to consider in their health care decisions.”
Consumers can access www.MIHospitalInform.org free of charge.
Available on the Web site is pricing information for the 50 most frequent inpatient and 50 most frequent outpatient medical procedures (clinical diagnoses and treatments) monitored and covered by Medicare. Specifically, consumers will find the average charge, average payment, average length of stay (inpatient only), and total number of patients who were treated for each of the medical procedures at Michigan hospitals. The Medicare data compiled on the site comes from the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).
The MHA notes that, while Medicare data are good indicators of pricing and quality at Michigan hospitals, consumers should not base their health care treatment decisions exclusively on this information. Consumers are encouraged to contact their local hospital, personal physician and insurance company for additional information.
“We started with Medicare data since Medicare represents a large segment of patients in Michigan and the data are available from a reliable and credible source,” Johnson said. “The MHA will work with its individual member hospitals to build on that base to expand the information available on the Web site in the future.”
For more information: www.mihospitalinform.org and www.mha.org