First-Time Users: What Can I Find? Sample Links on Cost, Quality, Ratings, Health & Choices

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Hospital Compare – at medicare.gov (all states) Hospital star ratings, complications Editor's Pick

Visit Hospital Compare to find hospital star ratings and complications for hospitals in all states. Compare 3 hospitals at one time. Federal government (at medicare.gov) gives 1 to 5 stars and compares hospital ratings for heart attack (AMI), heart failure, pneumonia, COPD, stroke, hip & knee, preventing infections and surgical complications, timeliness of Emergency (ER) dept., use of medical imaging. Most data are from calendar 2021, but may vary by measure. Includes death rate comparisons from heart failure, heart attack, pneumonia, COPD, stroke, CABG; and return to hospital (readmission) rates. Click on Timely & Effective Care, or Complications. Shows patient satisfaction HCAHPS ratings (patient experience opinions) from 2021. Some info on colonoscopies and cataracts. Editor’s Pick because it’s the best of what is out there. The federal government standardized broad ratings for all hospitals, and most ratings are based on more than just Medicare patients. Small volume hospitals will not show data for some measures. Graphs are no longer available. Today’s stars may reflect older data than shown at the website. Read the fine print. Updated October 2022.

NCQA Health Insurance Plan Ratings and Report Card 2022-2023 Editor's Pick

NCQA ratings and report card for 2022 on health insurance plans. Compare quality ratings for HMOs and PPO health insurance plans. Aetna, Anthem Blue Cross, Cigna, Humana, Kaiser, United Healthcare – they’re all here, as are many non-profit regional plans. Star ratings and number of enrollees shown for accredited commercial, Medicare and Medicaid plans. Six private commercial plans received the highest possible 5-point star rating: Four Kaiser Foundation plans (Colorado and 3 Mid-Atlantic States plans), and two Medical Associates Health plans (WI, IA & IL).  Sixty-nine (69) plans (commercial, Medicare and Medicaid) received ratings of 4.5 stars. NCQA (National Committee for Quality Assurance) is a private nonprofit organization that sets standards for quality of care and service that health plans provide to their members. NCQA Accreditation is a nationally recognized seal of approval. Updated November 2022.

Nursing Home Compare (all states) www.medicare.gov 2022 Editor's Pick

Free 5-star ratings from Nursing Home Compare for nursing homes that are Medicare or Medicaid certified and provide skilled nursing care. Quality ratings, nursing staffing and CNA hours per resident day, and results from survey inspection reports are updated with 2022 data. If you cannot find the nursing home you’re interested in, the facility might not accept Medicare and Medicaid patients. A one-star rating on the inspections means that nursing home is in the bottom 20% of all nursing homes. Check your state reports for additional information. Consumers can also ask the nursing facility to share their reports on resident and family satisfaction. Good nursing homes welcome your inquiry. Nursing Home Compare is now part of Medicare’s Care Compare mega-site.

California – 2021-2022 HMO, PPO, & Medical Group Ratings Report Card Editor's Pick

Find California HMO, PPO and Medical Group ratings report card for 2021-2022. Kaiser Permanente HMO Plan of Southern California received the highest ratings for Quality. Sharp Health Plan HMO received the highest ratings for member satisfaction. Two plans got the lowest ratings (Poor, one-star) for member patient experience: Health Net Life PPO and United Healthcare PPO. Compare 16 largest California HMO health insurance plans: Aetna, Anthem Blue Cross HMO, Blue Shield, Cigna, Health Net, Kaiser Permanente Northern and Southern CA regions, Sharp Health Plan, United Healthcare and Western Health Advantage. Compare 6 of the largest PPOs: Aetna, Anthem Blue Cross, Blue Shield, Cigna, Health Net Life Insurance Company, United Healthcare. Clear, simple star system (5 stars = excellent; 4 stars = very good; 3 stars = good, 2 stars = fair; 1 star = poor) used for overall rating. Actual performance scores are not given, but may be available through NCQA. Quality measures (based on HEDIS scores) for asthma, cancer screening, child health, chlamydia screening, diabetes, heart care, maternity care, behavioral and mental health, and other expected care. Member satisfaction stars also shown. Complaint rates are reported for health plans in a separate report. Nearly 200 Medical Group ratings also provided by county for the larger groups of doctors. For example, nearly 60 different Kaiser Permanente medical groups are included; Sutter, Scripps, Sharp and many more.  Prepared by the California state Office of the Patient Advocate (OPA).

Florida Health Insurance Plans – Quality Ratings & Satisfaction

Find Florida health insurance plans member satisfaction and quality ratings. Topics may vary from year to year. They usually include cancer screening, diabetes, prenatal care, well child care, children’s dental care, high blood pressure for HMOs, Medicare HMOs and Medicaid. Aetna, AvMed, Better Health, Capital, CIGNA, Clear Health Alliance, Community, Coventry, Florida Health Care, Freedom Health, Health First, Health Options, Humana, Molina, Neighborhood, Positive, Prestige, Simply, Staywell, Sunshine, United Healthcare, Children’s Medical Services and others. Search by county. Member satisfaction for Aetna, AvMed, Capital Health Plan HMO (highest member satisfaction), Cigna, Coventry, Florida Blue, Florida Health Care Plan, Golden Rule PPO (lowest member satisfaction), Health First, Humana, Molina, Neighborhood, Sunshine Health, United. Easy to read. Choose stars or actual scores / ratings. Member satisfaction is recent (2020) for Medicaid plans, but old (2017) for commercial health plans. FL reports from floridahealthfinder.gov.

Florida Prescription Drug Prices 2023

The official Florida Prescription Drug Price website helps consumers easily compare 2023 prices for the 300 most commonly dispensed and approved prescription drugs for Medicaid patients in FL. Consumer Health Ratings found large price variation among pharmacies. Here’s an example: In  Miami-Dade County, March 2023 prices ranged from $562 to $1,965 for the same drug Eliquis (5 mg, quantity 60). ($620 was the cost at CVS; Walgreens price was $599. This example excludes the lowest area price of $46, and the highest price of nearly $42,000 – not kidding – at La Cubana Pharmacy Discount in Miami.) Another example: Warfarin 2 mg prices ranged from $17 to a $44 per prescription. In other cases, pharmacy prices might be nearly identical to each other. Drugs vary by city, include  amlodopine, Flovent, Januvia, Jardiance, Latuda, Metoprolol, Ozempic, Spiriva, Trazodone, Vraylar, Xarelto and more. One of the few pharmacy cost comparison sites left in the US. Unfortunately high priced, heavily advertised brand name best-selling drugs (Humira, Revlimid, Opdivo, Keytruda, Enbrel, Herceptin, Avastin, Rituxan, Xarelto, Eylea, Remicade, Prevnar 13, Stelara, Lyrica, and Vyvanse) are not included. Updated monthly.

Government Employee 2023 Health Insurance Plan Cost Comparisons (FEHB) Editor's Pick

Health insurance plan cost comparisons in 2023 for Federal government employees. Compare the benefits, member satisfaction, and employee costs for all plans at once. Consumers can also select 3 health insurance plans at one time to see out of network benefits. Web site for Federal Employees Health Benefits (FEHB) Program is from US Office of Personnel Management (OPM). Enrollee premium, deductible, copays and maximum out of pocket costs are shown. Search by zip code; choose local plans and/or national plans. Convenient and current for 2023. Helpful to federal employees and others. The amount that taxpayers and government institutions pay toward the total health care premiums is no longer available, as it was a few years ago.

Massachusetts Doctor License Lookup and Physician Profiles Editor's Pick

Massachusetts medical doctor license lookup and physician profiles. Massachusetts provides one-stop access to information about the education, training, board certification status, malpractice, discipline and criminal records (if any) of all licensed physicians. Both MD and DO (osteopathic doctors). MA Board of Registration in Medicine site is easy to use.

Minnesota Nursing Home Report Card Quality and Daily Rates Editor's Pick

Minnesota Nursing Home Report Card, is, hands down, the best state report card for nursing homes. In addition to quality, satisfaction, and room rates, it’s easy to use. Compare nursing homes in whatever zip code region you specify, according to your top 3 favorite criteria. Simple 5-star comparison system. Shows Resident Quality of Life, Family Satisfaction, Quality of Care, Staff turnover & hours of direct care, private rooms and more. MN survey inspection reports are linked. Click on the nursing home name to see details, including daily rates at January 1, 2022 and how much extra a private room will cost. The daily payment rate chart is complicated, however. Also, click on the # “Show Numbers” icon to see scores, instead of stars. MN Dept. of Health site updated 2022.

New York State Hospital Quality Ratings – health.ny.gov

Find hospital ratings on quality in New York state. Select NY hospitals to compare in care areas like maternity, emergency department waiting time, post-op complications, cardiac, patient satisfaction, readmissions, death rates or infection prevention. Data are pretty old and very hard to find (hover over the hospital’s score, or see the dates on the Printable Page). Most data are from somewhere between 2017 and 2020. Patient satisfaction, if reported, reflects 2020 scores. Services include maternity (2017 scores) and volumes for some types of surgery (e.g. endoscopy, colonoscopy, hernia repair) and procedure counts for MRI, CT, cancer chemotherapy and psych evaluations. Many measures (e.g. surgery complications and mortality) and volume data go back to 2017. New York State Department of Health (health.ny.gov) site NY Health Profiles. You can select hospitals to compare, to see performance measures side by side.

Pennsylvania Hospital Performance Report 2021 | PHC4 Editor's Pick

Find hospital performance reports in Pennsylvania for 2021, through PHC4. Compare PA hospitals on Mortality Rating (relative survival rate), Average Charge (price), and Readmission rates. Thirteen (13) conditions in the reports include heart failure, abnormal heartbeat, heart attack, stroke, intestinal obstruction, COPD, diabetes, kidney failure, urinary tract infections, sepsis, blood clot in lung, chest pain, and respiratory failure. As an example, there were 57,037 sepsis cases in Pennsylvania in 2020-2021, with an average mortality rate of 10.9%. (In the prior year report, those with Covid were separated. The sepsis patients with Covid, led to a 27.9% mortality rate in the prior year). The average charge for Sepsis was $73,112. (In a separate report, you can find that Medicare most often paid an average $12,830 for sepsis.) About 18% were readmitted. There were 24 hospitals that had worse mortality than expected for sepsis; and 18 hospitals that had significantly lower mortality than expected. Symbols for Mortality ratings can be confusing – a higher mortality rating means worse survival.  Older reports may have laparoscopic gallbladder removal information and pneumonia information. No orthopedic (hip or knee) surgery included. Data from Oct. 2020 to Sept. 2021, published by the Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council (PHC4), December 2022.

Texas – Compare Texas HMOs 2020-2021 – Consumer Ratings (OPIC)

Compare HMO (Health Maintenance Organization) plans for Central Texas, East Texas, Gulf Coast, North TX, Panhandle/Plains area, South Texas, West Texas regions. TX HMO report cards by OPIC for 2020-2021 show Texas consumer ratings of their health insurance plans and the medical care enrolled members received during 2019. Includes plans covering Austin, Dallas, Ft. Worth, Houston, San Antonio, Abilene, Amarillo, Lubbock, Waco, Corpus Christi and Rio Grande. Satisfaction ratings and market share are shown for Christus (the highest rated plan and the highest rated health care), Blue Cross Blue Shield, Cigna, Humana, Aetna Health, FIRSTCARE, Memorial Hermann, Scott and White Health Plan, Community First and United Healthcare. Report by Texas OPIC (Office of Public Insurance Counsel). No updates as of October 2022.

Vermont – 2022 Hospital Report Cards (Act 53)

Vermont 2022 hospital ratings are called Act 53 report cards – legislation passed in 2003, requiring VT hospitals to publish annual community reports about hospital quality, safety, financial health, costs for services and more. This government site links the data, including outpatient prices. See if your VT hospital is average, above average, or below average. Health conditions include heart care, pneumonia, surgical infection prevention, central line associated bloodstream infections, c. diff. infections, hysterectomy infections, knee replacement and hip replacement infection rates, volume and death rates, readmissions, psychiatric hospital quality & more. This site permits access to Quality Ratings, Survival Rate information, links to patient satisfaction and current medical prices all on the same web page for easy access. Nurse staffing also available for 2022 for most hospitals. Dates for other reports vary, usually up to 2021 data. Information on prices for some procedures, and services such as physician office visits also available. Published at healthvermont.gov August 2022.

Wisconsin PricePoint – Outpatient & Ambulatory Surgery Cost

Find average cost for outpatient and ambulatory surgery in 2021, from Wisconsin PricePoint. Compare outpatient and ambulatory surgery volume and charges for colonoscopy, cataracts, eardrum surgery, shoulder or knee surgery, carpal tunnel surgery, removal of tonsils & adenoids, appendectomy, breast biopsy, endoscopy, gallbladder (cholecystectomy), upper GI, heart catheterization and more. Compare hospitals and surgical centers. Typical (median) price in county and statewide Wisconsin median prices shown, but no dates are provided on the consumer site. Must use the healthcare professionals site to see the dates and the number of procedures done at each hospital; 2021 prices are shown. Prices exclude surgeon and other doctors’ fees which may double the numbers you see here