Aetna Posts Physician Fees Online for Health Plan Members
Connecticut-based Aetna on Friday will make available to members information on the exact prices it has negotiated with in-network doctors in the Cincinnati area, the Wall Street Journal reports. Aetna, which hopes to provide patients with the tools needed to comparison shop for services and make smarter decisions about health care spending, is the first major health insurer to publicly disclose the fees it negotiated with physicians. Aetna will provide pricing information on 600 of the most common medical services provided by primary care doctors and specialists in its network in Cincinnati and parts of southeast Indiana, northern Kentucky and Dayton, Ohio. The information will be accessible by any Aetna member who goes to the insurers' Web site. Aetna ultimately hopes to expand the program nationwide, and some experts say the move could prompt other insurers to "follow suit, which in turn would give a significant boost to consumer-driven health plans," the Journal reports.
Comments
Aetna President Ron Williams said, "To create a more functional health care market, we need more transparency." However, some experts say that consumers should use the price information with caution. Molly Katz, president of the Ohio State Medical Association, said, "You need more information [than what is available in itemized pricing], and sometimes it's definitely worth it to pay for something." Ray Herschman, a national practice leader at Mercer Human Resource Consulting, said, "When you go to the doctor, you don't go to buy a procedure. You go to get a condition treated. The doctor with the lower price unit might end up charging more for services." He said the next step should be comparing doctors' overall charges for treating conditions. Regina Herzlinger, a professor of business administration at Harvard Business School, said that as pricing information becomes more widely available, it might encourage competition among doctors and sharing more quality-of-care data (Fuhrmans, Wall Street Journal, 8/18).
