UPMC to Give Health Insurance Customers, Choice of 40 Providers for Routine Medical Procedures

Health insurance customers of UPMC Health Plan will soon be able to choose from 40 routine medical procedures in their health plan, reports the Pittsburgh Tribune Review. This will benefit customers as there are big price differences between hospitals.

UPMC is the second largest health insurer in Western Pennsylvania.

Cost comparisons will initially be provided for routine procedures, such as MRIs, biopsies, colonoscopies and mammograms, and for hospitals with high enough volume to give accurate cost estimates.

The program, offered online through WebMD, will use UPMC Health Plan claims data to provide cost estimates for the procedures at many of the more than 125 hospitals in the insurer's network plus an out-of-network estimate.

UPMC Health Plan has 1.79 million members. But the cost-comparison tools is expected to be used primarily by the insurer's 520,000 members who receive health insurance through an employer.

There will also be a quality tool that rates hospitals using available quality measures from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and other agencies.

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Source-Medindia