Hospital Pricing Transparency Comes to Colorado

Across the country, calls for hospital pricing transparency are increasing and can now be heard right here in Colorado. National media stories have generated a great deal of attention and they come at a time when many consumers have high deductible plans and are increasingly motivated to comparison-shop for best pricing. There couldn’t be a better time for Colorado healthcare leaders to prepare for consumer-driven pricing strategies.

However, making pricing information more transparent is easier said than done. Any hospital or practice administrator knows why— charges rarely reflect what patients and their insurers actually pay. Instead, charges are the direct result of complicated negotiations with insurers.

The good news is that the Colorado Rural Health Center now offers rural hospitals access to expertise and tools which provide a clear and complete picture of how a hospital’s payments compare to other hospitals in Colorado, across service lines and payors. With the right set of metrics, payments from major commercial plans can be analyzed to determine if you are below market to aid in negotiations with payors…or above market, exposing you to negative public perception in this era of transparency.

The CRHC has teamed up with iVantage Health Analytics to offer INCONTROL Contract Optimizer™, a unique tool which enables hospitals to leverage market and peer-related metrics about hospital pricing to improve managed care contract negotiations. Many hospitals from across the country have seen increased revenue and improve market position as a result of using the INCONTROL solution.

For more information contact bo@coruralhealth.org or call 303.832.7493 and stay tuned for upcoming webinars.