According to a report released Tuesday, Florida and 44 other states fail to give the public access to information on what health-care services cost, the Miami Herald reports.
The study, co-published by two nonprofits - Catalyst for Payment Reform and Health Care Incentives Improvement Institute - assessed how readily consumers were able to find health care prices in each state.
Florida’s Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA) has the floridahealthfinder.gov website, but it lists only the amount on the hospital bill, not what insurers actually pay. The report from the two consumer-advocacy groups says that what patients need is a site where they can find data to help them budget medical expenses, the Herald reports.
This year, AHCA requested about $5 million to build an all payer claims database, according to the Herald. The database, dubbed the Health Care Cost Analytic Tool, would reveal how and where health care is being delivered and what it actually costs, according to AHCA.
However, Gov. Rick Scott did not include it in his budget proposal, and it has been largely ignored by state legislators, the Herald reports.
