I got a letter the other day from a friend of mine who happens to be a Harvard Pilgrim member. She was annoyed by the size of the bill she received from a Boston teaching hospital for a colonoscopy. She said the amount due — both the total and the amount she had to pay — couldn’t possibly be right, given the simplicity of the procedure.

I looked into it, concluded that the payment rates were, in fact, correct, and let her know that while it was a big bill, it was, in fact, for the right amount. I also told her that her experience — her shock and surprise over the size of her bill — was a great example of why I’ve spent so much time working on making what health plans pay for services more publicly available.

I told her that if all goes according to plan, the Massachusetts Health Care Quality and Cost Council will begin posting aggregate payment data — risk adjusted — for many common procedures — like the one she had — by the end of July. This would make it easy for people like her — who have cost sharing coverage — to figure out where it makes sense to have a simple procedure.

Posted by Charlie Baker in Health Care Costs, Transparency