July 23, 2020
Interactive tool makes hospital payments more transparent
For the first time, the Oregon Health Authority has released its annual Oregon Hospital Payment report as an online dashboard. In its fifth year of publication, the report details the median amounts paid by commercial insurers for the most common inpatient and outpatient procedures performed in Oregon hospitals in 2018. The report provides a look at hospital payments before they were affected by COVID-19.
"This online dashboard makes hospital payment data more accessible than ever before," said Jeremy Vandehey, OHA’s director of health policy and analytics. "This pandemic has had and will continue to have significant impacts on our health systems. In future years, this information can help us understand how COVID-19 affected the cost of health care across the state."
The goal of the report is to provide transparency about hospital reimbursement. Users of the new dashboard can click on interactive charts and graphs to see payment details by hospital for common hospital procedures. The dashboard also shows whether the amounts paid increased or decreased from 2017.
In 2018 the United States spent $3.6 trillion on health care, the equivalent of $11,172 per person. Hospital care accounts for almost 33%, or $1.2 trillion, of that spending each year. Hospital care also represents one of the fastest growing sectors of health care.
Insurance companies continue to pay hospitals widely varying amounts for the same procedures within hospitals, among hospitals, and across the state, according to the report. In 2018 imaging and diagnostic procedures – including eight of the state’s 10 most commonly performed procedures – were reported to have increased by an average of 6.2 percent from 2017, the most of any category.
Other highlights of the report include:
- Most procedures show sizable variations in paid amounts, both within and among hospitals.
- Paid amounts decreased for 11 of the 24 inpatient procedures reported, likely due to a decrease in the length of hospital stays.
- The median amount paid decreased for knee and hip replacements, the two most common inpatient procedures.
- The two most common radiation and chemotherapy procedures grew 4% and 5.8% respectively.
- Pregnancy related procedures decreased as a group due to decreases in cesarean section deliveries and in newborn care with complications.
For more details on the 2018 Oregon Hospital Payment Report, visit the OHA Health Policy and Analytics website.