Massachusetts moves toward transparency on health care costs

The California Health Care Foundation's ihealthbeat online newsletter today reported that Massachusetts plans to post payment data on hospitals online, based on a recent Boston Globe article. Specifically, each hospital will be required to post average payments made by each insurer for certain procedures, the idea being to allow consumers to comparison-shop for hospitals on the basis of costs. Hospitals will also post quality information on these procedures, but the specific procedures have not yet been decided upon.

New Hampshire has posted payment data, but not quality data, on a range of types of hospitalizations, some of which may be more feasible than others for comparison shopping.