Guest Article

(From the November 8, 2010 issue of Deloitte's Washington Bulletin, a periodic update of legal and regulatory developments relating to Employee Benefits.)

HealthCare.Gov Site Now Includes Comparative Plan Data

HealthCare.Gov now includes comparative data - premiums, annual deductibles, out-of-pocket maximums, and other information - on the health plans available to consumers within a particular zip code.

Searches can be narrowed to include HMOs or PPOs, and specific coverage features (i.e., maternity, mental health, substance abuse, prescription drug coverage, etc.). Plans can be compared on an apples-to-apples basis, on information that includes the percentage of applicants who were denied coverage, the percentage who received surcharges due to health status, and the particular benefits and services covered under the plan.

HealthCare.Gov also houses care quality information on hospitals, nursing homes, home health agencies, and dialysis facilities. Hospitals, for example, can be compared on the basis of surveys of patient expectations (e.g., whether the doctors always communicated with them, whether they were given instructions on what to do during recovery at home, whether they would recommend the hospital), process of care measures (e.g., percentage of surgery patients whose preventive antibiotics were stopped at the right time, percentage of heart attack patients given aspirin at arrival, percentage of pneumonia patients given initial antibiotics within 6 hours after arrival), and outcome of care measures (e.g., death rate for heart attack patients, death rate for pneumonia patients).

The site also has a section on understanding the new Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which includes an interactive timeline of "What's changing and when." The key provisions of the new law are explained in separate easy-to-understand segments (e.g., children's pre-existing conditions, Medicare's donut-hole rebate, lifetime and annual limits).

The information in this Washington Bulletin is general in nature only and not intended to provide advice or guidance for specific situations. If you have any questions or need additional information about articles appearing in this or previous versions of Washington Bulletin, please contact: Robert Davis 202.879.3094, Elizabeth Drigotas 202.879.4985, Mary Jones 202.378.5067, Stephen LaGarde 202.879-5608, Bart Massey 202.220.2104, Tom Pevarnik 202.879.5314, Sandra Rolitsky 202.220.2025, Deborah Walker 202.879.4955. Copyright 2010, Deloitte.