Government Launches Quality Care Website

Part of the problem facing our health care system is lack of information. The federal government launched a website late last month to help alleviate this issue – healthcare.gov.

The site was developed to provide information on both health insurers and providers with the thought that Americans can make better decisions and lower health care costs if they have access to the data. Currently, most of the data regarding quality of insurers and providers is not available to the public.

Insurers, who now provide little information when it comes to quality of care, would be forced to submit information regarding their data. Providers already offer up this information to some extent but now it will be available to the public.

Providing this data on the web site initially sounds like a great plan but there are some drawbacks. Without a model that explains the data, the numbers could be overwhelming and confusing to the average American. On the plan side, it will be a tough comparison until people can see plans side-by-side. On the provider side, quality is even harder to decipher.

In a system that pushes newer as better, the data is not always a good indicator of quality. Patient satisfaction isn’t always related to how skilled a doctor or hospital is at treating illnesses; rather what treatments are used. Quality numbers of patient satisfaction is skewed more towards perceived quality than actual quality. In other words, a hospital that has the most attentive staff or provides the most aggressive treatments may receive a higher patient-satisfaction rating than one that most closely adheres to best practices and uses the treatments that will most efficiently make patients well.

Creating a directory online that fairly compares insurers and providers is a major undertaking. The system needs to do it in a way that accurately compares insurers and providers, while explaining the data and not just leaving the public to figure out where quality lies.