Medica Offers Health Care Cost and Quality Information

According to the announcement, the cost information is based on the health plan’s in-network contract rates with providers in its Medica Choice network.

The tools available at the site include:

• Outpatient cost comparison tool: provides actual cost ranges for nearly two dozen procedures at area outpatient facilities, including arthroscopy, carpel tunnel surgery and certain types of high-tech imaging tests.
• Hospital comparison tool: allows members can compare estimated cost ranges, based on contracted rates, at selected regional hospitals for approximately 50 inpatient procedures, including appendectomies, coronary bypass surgeries and hernia repairs. This tool also ranks hospitals by number of patients per year, average length of stay, complication rates and other quality measures. It allows users to create customized reports based on variables and rankings they select.
• Treatment cost estimator: uses average costs in the user’s area to estimate out-of-pocket costs for diseases and conditions, surgeries and procedures, office visits and tests, and drugs.

The resource is available to Medica commercial members who have registered to use the myMedica Web site ( www.mymedica.com ).