Monday, November 15, 2010

HHS to Seek New Health Plan Data

From the Congressional Quarterly:

"The Department of Health and Human Services is working on regulations that would allow it to publish additional in-depth health insurance data, including the number of people enrolled in each insurance plan." An official at HHS said "transparency is what's needed to best help consumers understand their choices among insurance plans as the health care law is implemented." That will entail adding new data on insurance companies to www.healthcare.gov, a Web portal that already allows consumers to "compare plan premiums, benefits, and more" under the new health care law. HHS is planning to increase the number of plans included on the site to 8,000, and may include the enrollment numbers of each plan at some point in the future--currently, plans are ranked by enrollment but do not reveal the number of participants in a plan".

I am all for more data but I am not sure what the enrollment numbers will tell a prospective member. I also hope they provide info on customer satisfaction, customer service response and other factors that would be of interest to consumers.

Below is a link from the Commonwealth Fund that provides more detail:

http://www.commonwealthfund.org/Content/Newsletters/Washington-Health-Policy-in-Review/2010/Nov/November-15-2010/HHS-Will-Seek-to-Publish-Data-on-Health-Plan-Enrollment.aspx

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