The Health Care Cost Institute (HCCI) announced on Thursday that Assurant Health will be working with Aetna, Humana and UnitedHealthcare to create an online information portal that provides consumers with the price and quality of health care services.

"It hopefully means that consumers will use these portals to get health care information more broadly and they'll use it more intensively," David Newman, executive director of the HCCI, told DOTmed News. "I think to the extent that we want consumers to be conscious consumers, doing this makes a lot of sense."

When the portal is completed in early 2015, consumers will be able to log onto a single website that comprises two tiers. Tier one is free and requires no registration, and will show them the average prices of health care services in their area. Tier two allows consumers who have a health insurance company that participates in the portal to register on the website and then get more customized information.

In order to create the portal, the HCCI is using data from the insurance companies, including the allowed amount paid by the insurer, as well as copays and deductibles. They intend to ultimately link it to the data from Medicare Advantage and Medicaid health plans.

Newman believes that the insurance companies decided to jump on board because they were constantly being asked by academic researchers for access to their data. "By creating an independent institute they were able to get out of the business of reviewing research study applications and licensing data to academic researchers," he said. "They basically contracted that out to us by giving us the data and allowing us to do that."

He added that he thinks the insurance companies believe that by creating the portal it will create new insights and find new pieces of information about what's driving cost and utilization in the U.S.

Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, Health Net, Kaiser Permanente and Partners HealthCare are also working with HCCI on developing consumer transparency and public reporting standards for value-based health plan designs. HCCI is going to use those recommendations to guide the development of the information portal and also to create standards for public reporting by state all-payer claims databases.

"Going forward, our price transparency and quality transparency initiatives need to address the requirements around integrated delivery systems, bundled payments and accountable care organizations," said Newman.

He said that that there is a trend in health care right now revolving around greater consumer involvement in cost and providing them with quality information to make decisions, so that they are purchasing value. “You can’t ask consumers to do these things without providing them with information,” he added.

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