Stop this medical bill confusion!

Do you find analyzing medical bills a constant source of confusion and frustration?  Bills from multiple hospitals, doctors, labs or specialists for what appears to be the same episode of care – which only appears to vary in content, presentation and use of health industry jargon?

You are in good company – the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) has also had enough and announced this week a challenge to redesign the medical bill.

“This challenge is part of HHS’ larger effort to put patients at the center of their own health care,” said Secretary Burwell. “With the announcement, we are creating progress toward a medical bill that people can actually understand and a billing process that makes sense – progress that includes creating a forum that brings everyone to the table:  patients, doctors, hospitals, insurance companies and innovators.”

The A Bill You Can Understand challenge, which is sponsored by AARP and administered by the design agency Mad*Pow, seeks to draw attention to the complexity of medical billing and how patients are impacted.  Winning designs will be featured at the Health 2.0 Annual Fall Conference this September and on the challenge website.  In addition, the following organizations have committed to test or implement winning solutions for the patients they serve –

  • Cambia Health Solutions (Portland, OR)
  • Geisinger Health System (Danville, PA)
  • INTEGRIS Health (Oklahoma City, OK)
  • The MetroHealth System (Cleveland, OH)
  • Providence Health & Services (Seattle, WA)
  • University of Utah Health Care (Salt Lake City, UT)

Between them, these organizations have over 10 million patient visits each year to their hospitals, clinics and other health care facilities and, among those with health plans, cover nearly 3.5 million people. They represent a diverse set of health care organizations, ranging from academic medical centers, integrated delivery systems and safety net providers.  Experts from these organizations will also serve alongside patients and other stakeholders on an advisory panel to the challenge’s federal judges.

The challenge will issue two awards: one for the innovator that designs the bill that is easiest to understand and a second for the innovator that designs the best transformational approach to improve the medical billing system, focusing on what the patient sees and does throughout the process.  Submissions will be judged based on understandability, creativity and how well they address the challenges outlined by patients, providers and payers, among other criteria explained on the challenge website.

The challenge will accept submissions until August 10, 2016. Challenge winners will be announced in September 2016 and will receive cash prizes of $5,000 each.

Additional information including how to apply can be found at: http://www.abillyoucanunderstand.com/.

Open Payments review deadline-15th May

dollar-close up

Reminder: Open Payments Physician and Teaching Hospital Review and Dispute Period Ends May 15, 2016

Physicians and teaching hospitals have until May 15, 2016 to voluntarily review data reported by drug and medical device makers about them for calendar year 2015, and, if necessary, dispute payments, before the data is made public on June 30, 2016.

Physicians and teaching hospitals who registered last year do not need to reregister in the EIDM or the Open Payments system. If the account has been accessed within the last 60 days, go to the CMS Enterprise Portal, log in using your user ID and password, and navigate to the Open Payments system home page.

For more information about the registration process, visit the physician and teaching hospital registration page on the Open Payments website.