New Website Discloses Wisconsin Health Care Costs

A new website from the Wisconsin Hospital Association aims to increase disclosure of health care costs in Wisconsin and will allow comparisons of prices for 60 common procedures at hospitals statewide, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.  However, the site does not show actual prices charged to insurers, but the "retail," or list prices, which almost no one pays.  The site doesn't give actual, prices which are closely guarded, but it does show the overall discount insurers collectively receive off a hospital's retail rates for all procedures combined, which provides a measure for comparing actual prices between hospitals.

Health insurance premiums for businesses in Southeast Wisconsin have risen about 20% annually for several years. Hospital inpatient charges in metropolitan Milwaukee were 63% higher than the average of 239 metro areas nationwide, and physician prices were 33% higher than the average of 331 areas, a study released last August by the U.S. Government Accountability Office found.  Across Wisconsin, employer health costs last year were among the highest in the country - $8,605 per employee compared with the national average of $6,918, according to Mercer Human Resource Consulting.