Several major health insurance companies, including WellPoint and UnitedHealth Group, are working to upgrade their online services to offer consumers more data about the costs of medical services, the Wall Street Journal reports.
As more U.S. residents choose high-deductible health insurance plans, they are seeking more information on the cost of care.
Issues Facing Insurers
Many employers are pushing insurers to provide details about health care costs so that workers can shop around for the least costly services.
According to the Journal, Web-based tools that detail health care pricing usually have to be developed using data collected by health insurers, which typically are the ones processing health care bills for a company's employees.
Some insurers have been reluctant to disclose pricing data. The hesitation stems from contracts with medical providers that sometimes require cost details to be kept private.
Price Comparison Tools From Outside Vendors
Meanwhile, a number of outside vendors offer online pricing services to employers.
However, insurers say that only a tiny share of companies are interested in outside vendors and that their data make their own tools highly accurate.
WellPoint has said that most of its policyholders who are looking for better pricing data are focused on doing so through WellPoint and that less than 0.25% of its members have asked it to share information with an outside vendor (Wilde Mathews, Wall Street Journal, 10/27).